bengaluru excitement had been building for harshitha arlin joshua shravanthi and their teammates from st theresas girls high school kolar gold fields ever since they learnt that they would be travelling to bengaluru for the bha statelevel interschool girls hockey tournament it reached a crescendo on travel day when they arrived at the oorgaum railway station at around 6am to board a train to the garden citytogether with suresh r the physical education teacher the 16member team arrived at cantonment railway station last week and took public transport like bus and auto to get to the ksha stadium at akkithimanahalli they repeated this a couple of more times through the weekit was a week of many firsts for the girls some of whom hadnt been to the city before it was their first competitive experience in a sport that they began pursuing less than two weeks ago they hadnt even seen an artificial surface before let alone playing on one also they didnt know what it meant to play hockey for 60 minutes with a break halfway throughwith a win and a draw st theresas didnt make it into the second phase of the tournament but they like many other firsttimers in the event went back rich in experience and newfound knowledge of what it takes to competethe ongoing tournament conducted by the bengaluru hockey association bha has attracted 16 teams a new benchmark many from rural areas while fancied teams like the sports hostel units and bishop cottons girls school were seeded directly into the second phase the top two teams from phase one made it to the next roundsince a few teams were playing a tournament for the first time we wanted to encourage them by making them play amongst themselves that way we ensured a levelplaying field pointed out k krishnamurthy the bha secretaryof borrowed sticks and deep passionschools such as st theresas chikkaballapura high school government school nayandahalli and the ramakrishna rural school have little or no facilities but that was hardly a deterrent as they managed the resources to participate and give wing to their dreamsst theresas for example did not have enough sticks and safety equipment so they borrowed from their composite pu college team while local club ideal sports club and bha lent their goalkeeping kitsthe team was roped in as a late replacement after a bengalurubased school pulled out when we got the invitation javed of ideal sports club encouraged us to take part said suresh some of the girls played volleyball basketball and throwball but none of them had much experience in hockey however they picked up the game fastlike most of the players who had to travel long distances to get to the stadium the kgf girls packed some food from home and even had individual sponsors providing them lunch and refreshments after their matchesthe kgf girls won one match and lost another but like krishnamurthy observed it was not about victory or defeat the biggest highlight