GCC, Hikers and Fatima retain titles

By Rawle Toney

The curtains for this year’s Diamond Mineral Water International Indoor Hockey Festival came down in emphatic fashion, as all of last years winners retained their respective titles in the Men, Women and Veterans categories on Sunday evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

According to Malcolm Forbes, “Victory is sweetest when you have known defeat”. His quote was applicable to both the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ladies and the Everest Hikers men teams, who both tasted defeat in the tournament, before returning to claim their titles.

The Hikers over came debutants Notre Dame of Trinidad and Tobago 3-2, GCC got the better of GOA of Canada 2-1 in the female category, whilst Fatima overpowered GCC 7-6 in their Veteran’s matchup.

Hikers made there way into the finals by running over local rivals GCC in the men’s semi finals while Notre Dame made light work of last years finalist and fellow Trinidadian side Malvern in the other semi-finals.

But Notre Dame featuring International Hockey star Kwandwane Browne held the distinction of being the only undefeated men’s team and how ironic it was for them to play Hikers in the finals, after they had twice defeated them in the tournament’s preliminary round.

The Hikers obviously had no answer for Browne, but played a far better game than in their two previous meetings with the Trinidadians. But Notre Dame went ahead through Kenneth Whiteman in the 19th minute, after he received a long pass from Browne.

However, there celebrations were short-lived, as Devin Monroe equalized on the buzzer (20th) with a spectacular goal.

The second period would see the visitors applying relentless pressure on the defending champions and they were able to go one up through Solomon King (25th) with Browne once again being the orchestrator.

But the Hikers played like real champions and continued to display some purposeful hockey which enabled them to draw were able to level once again, courtesy of a superb goal from Alex Gouviea (30th). The visitors through their captain and go-to man Browne tried all the tricks in the book, but all there moves came out futile.

Monroe completed his double (37th) which ended up being the match winner as they were able to hold off some spirited runs by Notre Dame that saw Browne making some vicious run on goal to claim the title again.

Meanwhile in the Females championship match, the GCC ladies who were previously beaten twice by the GOA team, had other plans as it was clear they were not giving  the Canadians their first title here in Guyana.

It was obvious that coach Phillip Fernandes and his ladies did some home work on their opponents, since they came out and played with much more purpose than they did in their two other meetings and this paid off with an early goal from Dominique DeGroot (8th).

They were able to hold off some good challenges from the visitors and held on to their lead going into the second half. It was visually evident that the Canadian ladies were much more skillful but what the GCC lacked in individual skill, they made up by playing as a team and was always energized.

GOA would equalize through Tara Fernandes (27th), however backed by a small but vociferous crowd at the venue, the GCC ladies held there composure and thanks to some excellent goal keeping, and a game winning goal by Shebiki Baptiste (34th), held on to win 2-1.

Fatima who played undefeated through out the tournament defeated GCC in a heated battle that ended 7-6, to successfully defended their title.

International Hockey star Kwandwane Browne was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Men’s tournament while Canada’s GOA Jo Fernandes was the Females MVP.

With the win both GCC ladies and Hikers Men’s went home with US$ 1000 each while US$500 was presented to Fatima for winning the veterans category.

The tournament was sponsored by Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) through their Diamond Mineral Water brand for the fifth consecutive year along with Ansa McAl with the Carib Beer brand.