Karnataka started their campaign in style by beating Steel Authority of India (SAIL) in the second phase of league matches in the National junior hockey champioship here on Saturday.
In the Group B encounter, Karnataka defeated SAIL 6-3, while defending champions  Services were swamped by SAI in Group H.
In other matches, Punjab was invovled in a grim battle before posting a soltiary goal win over Jharkhand in Group D while Bengal blanked Himachal Pradesh by five clear goals  in Group F.
Earlier in the day, close contests marked the the beginning of the second phase. In group D, Uttaranchal owed a great deal to striker Manoj Rawat’s spectacular goal to score a 2-1 win over Rajasthan to collect full points, while Bhopal, down by two goals, came back strongly to hold Patiala to a 2-2 draw and share the honours in Group H.
Meanwhile, Orissa defeated Mumbai 3-1 in Group F and Manipur dazzled in the SAF Games Astro-turf stadium with a breezy 10-2 win over Tripura in a Group B contest.

Results: Group B: Karnataka 6 (Muddupta 2, Rajesh, Girish Ganapathy, Nanaiah, Vineet Michael) bt SAIL 3 (Upendra Pillai 2, Birendra Lakra); Manipur 10 (Dh Hemjit singh 1, Adeba Singh 2, Joy Chandrasingh 4, Abung 2, Tarun Kumar Singh 1) bt Tripura-2 (Barnabus Neg, Deep Chand Tigga).
Group D: Uttaranchal 2 (Ramesh Kumar, Manoj Rawat) bt Rajasthan 1 (Sunil Kumar); Punjab 1 (Sanjay Kumar Blr) bt Jharkand 0.
Group F: Orissa 3 (Deepak Ekka 2, Sunil Kujur) bt Mumbai 1 (Ajaz Quareshi); Bengal 5 (Gurdeep Singh 2, Varinder Singh, Gaindra Tigga, Shuvankar Bhwya) bt Himachal Pradesh 0.
Group H: SAI 5  (Faisal Aziz, Jay Karan, Shashi Kant, Gurvinder Singh, Irshad Mirza) bt Services 0; Bhopal 2 (Nadeem Baig, Junaid Ansari) drew  Patiala 2 (Amritvir Singh (pc), Kanwarjeet Singh 19).