India’s junior women’s hockey team has closed its campaign at the FIH Hockey Women’s Junior World Cup 2025 in Santiago, Chile. The team lost to Spain by 1-2 in their 9/10 classification match held at the Centro Deportivo de Hockey Cesped, Estadio Nacional. With the loss, the Indian team finished in 10th place in the tournament’s overall rankings.
Kanika Siwach was the lone goal scorer for India; meanwhile, Spain’s Natalia Vilanova and Esther Canales scored one goal each.
The first quarter of the match saw an intense battle on the field from both sides. Entering midway in the quarter, Spain found themselves a chance to goal but India’s Nidhi made two back-to-back saves and kept both teams at 0-0. Later, in the 14th minute of the game, Spain got its first penalty corner, which again got denied by Nidhi.
In the start of the second quarter, Spain posted quick counterattacks from Sara Carmona Ramos, who dribbled around the circle and got a pass inside, which then got successfully deflected, with Natalia scoring the goal and giving Spain the lead in the match. India at this time was trailing at 0-1. In the minutes that followed, India received many chances, but Spain, without making any mistake, did not give away any penalty corners to them and maintained the lead in their momentum.
Later in the 36th minute, India’s Sonam got the chance to intercept a pass and score the first goal, but a video referral from Spain left them at a disadvantage as the referee saw a back stick and disallowed the goal. But soon after, Spain received another penalty corner from Esther’s flick and got the advantage by adding another goal to the score. Spain was leading at this time by 2-0.
However, India somehow got two consecutive penalty corners in the 41st minute of the third quarter, and Kanika scored the first score after striking against the opponent goalkeeper.
Meanwhile, in the last quarter, India pushed itself to create and find more chances and kept the intensity high. Through Ishika’s powerful backhand shot, India was extremely close to adding their second goal, but a defender from the opponent team stopped her on the goal line, and they failed to tie the score. Thereafter, Spain maintained their defensive gameplay and kept their lead until the final minutes of the game.
India eventually lost their 10th qualification match against Spain by a score of 1-2.
