Azerbaijan and Ghana kicked off the Round 2 of the Hockey World League today in South Africa as the first Round 2 tournament kicked off under sunny, but extremely windy conditions. Azerbaijan braved the blustery weather and came away with the historic 4-0 win.

Farida Mammadova set the tone early, firing in a direct shot just over three minutes into action. After the goal, the Azerbaijanis had several good chances, but couldn’t capitalize until the last two minutes of the first half when Khatira Aliyeva scored the lone penalty corner marker of the game. Mammadova followed up less than a minute later to give Azerbaijan an convincing 3-0 lead at the break.

Running into the wind and down by three in the second half, there was little that Ghana could do to stave off Azerbaijan, which was the much stronger team in the half. Luckily, the scoring was kept to a minimum as Azerbaijan added just one additional goal coming mid-half from Yuiliya Muradi to bring the final to 4-0.

16^th-ranked Azerbaijan will take on #29 Austria tomorrow, while #31 Ghana will have a tough test tomorrow against top-ranked South Africa.