Chennai, June 07 2009: Goa romped into the semi-finals of the 63rd National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy with a commanding 5-0 win against Maharashtra with Marcus Mascarenhas scoring a hattrick in their concluding Group B quarterfinal league match on Sunday.

Goa finished with seven points from two wins and a draw and joined Bengal and Tamil Nadu who had qualified from Group A Saturday, while Maharashtra, having lost all their three matches, made a rather unceremonious exit.

Beevan D'Mello (21st, 30th) and Mascarenhas (35th, 55th, 90th) gave Goa a comfortable 3-0 lead in the first-half that saw Maharashtra having more of the ball possession.

It was certainly a poor play by the Maharashtra defenders who were a stride slow and barely marked the Goan forwards who when in position did as they pleased.

In contrast, the Maharashtra forwards worked hard to repeatedly breach the Goan defence, but just could not find a way to score.

These blemishes at the finish were to prove costly.

Past the 21st minute, D'Mello was let free to head in a curling corner kick by Nicolas Rodrigues for the first goal.

Worse was to follow for Maharashtra as D'Mello had the space to receive a pass, turn and slip it past the goalkeeper without so much as a token challenge.

Goa effectively killed the Maharashtra resistance when Mascarenhas eased between a couple of defenders to stick his leg out and deflect home a D'Mello cross to give his side a virtually unassailable 3-0 lead by the 35th minute.

In the other semi final match of the group, Services defeated Karnataka at the Nehru Stadium to book their place in the semifinals of the competition.

Services started the match the more attacking of the two sides and could have scored twice in the opening exchanges but Shaji D Silva failed to keep his shots on target on both occasions.

D Silva then had a one-on-one chance in the 6th minute when he had only Karnataka goalkeeper Gumpe Rime to beat but he chipped the ball over the crossbar.

Services, though, deservedly went ahead in the 28th minute when Raleng was brought down inside the Karnataka penalty area by Naveen Babu and the referee pointed to the penalty spot.

Laldingliana made no mistake in coverting the chance.

Services went on to win the match 1-0 and shall now confront West Bengal in the semi-finals of the Santosh Trophy.

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