Army Green XI earned a hard-fought 3-1 win over Indian Air Force (IAF) in a Tier II encounter of the State Super Division hockey league at the KSHA stadium here on Monday.
After a dull first half, Army Green XI went on the attack mode after the breather, for which they were rewarded with a goal in the 47th minute.
Sanjeev Singh, who had scored three goals in Army's victory over SAI last week, had a tough time in the first half.
The IAF defenders did not give him any leeway. But Sanjeev finally broke the shackles and took the ball into the striking circle against the run of the play and crossed to an unmarked Jerome Kujur, who scored with a powerful reverse flick.
However, despite the early success, Army, instead of upping the tempo, surprisingly went into a defensive mode.
They were content with a 1-0 lead and started playing out time with most of them relying on minus passes.
That proved costly for Army as one of the minus passes was well intercepted by IAF's Balbir Singh and they made a swift counterattack.
In the goalmouth melee that followed in the 53rd minute, IAF were awarded a penalty stroke and LP Singh, who took the stroke, was bang on target to help IAF draw level.
Six minutes later, Army went to the lead again through S P Tirkey's solo effort. Army seemed to have learned from their early mistake as this time they made repeated forays at the rival goal.
They were duly rewarded for their efforts, earning a penalty corner in the 69th minute.
Anup Kullu sounded the board to give them the insurance goal.
In the day’s  other match, Madras Engineer Group and Centre overcame Hindustan Aeronautics Sports Club 3-2.
Bikshal Bhengra scored a brace in the second and 25th minutes of play through penalty corners and Dinesh Tirkey added one more in the 68th minute for MEG.
HAL equalised through Abhinav in the 14th minute and Rajesh gave them the lead in the 19th minute from a penalty corner, but were ran out of steam in the final few minutes.