Three teams remain unbeaten after Thursday evening’s matches of the 2019 Noble House Goals Galore Indoor Hockey Championships. Hikers continue to dominate the men’s division with the Hikers Generals and Pepsi Hikers each securing their third victories while in the female division, the Bingo Spartans managed to upstage Saints to keep their perfect record intact.
The highly-anticipated Bingo Spartans versus Saints match featured a number of the country’s top junior players and saw both teams starting dead even with five-goal handicaps.
The sound of the opening whistle saw striker Abosaide Cadogan receiving a penetrating pass from Makeda Harding on the right side and flicking a hard shot into the Saints net. Three minutes before the half, midfielder Madison Fernandes, converted a Spartans penalty corner to take her team into the halftime break up 7-5.
The second half saw a few close chances wasted and the game mostly became a midfield battle for dominance. With the clock winding down, Fernandes pounced on a loose ball in the Saints circle and surprised the Saints defence with her shot into the low right-hand corner. The match would end 8-5 in favour of the Bingo Spartans who rose to the top of the points table as a result.
The GBTI GCC Tigers upstaged their clubmates the GBTI GCC Spice 4-3. Spice had the task of coming from three goals down as Tigers enjoyed a three-goal handicap.
Spice would begin to reel in the Tigers, scoring their first two goals by the seventh minute through Gabriella Xavier and Ashley DeGroot. The Tigers, however, held firm for the rest of the match and against the run of play, went one up eight minutes after resumption through a Marzana Fiedtkou penalty corner to go up by 4 -2. Xavier would score again with a last-minute penalty corner but could not prevent the Tigers 4-3 victory.
The YMCA OFHC Wolves similarly faced off against clubmates the YMCA OFHC Bellatrix. The Bellatrix nine-goal handicap to the Wolves five, proved enough to give Bellatrix their first point of the competition as the game finished 9-9. In addition to their 5-goal handicap, the Wolves scored four goals through Cassie Campbell, MinSodia Culpepper, Jasmine Assanah and Romichelle Brumell.
The Hikers Generals with a 9-goal handicap faced off against Bounty GCC with 3 goals in the men’s competition. Despite the Generals composition of ageing players including a few former nationals, Bounty GCC found it difficult to penetrate their well-organized defence. In the 14thminute of play, however, Lennox netted for GCC which was immediately followed by a second from teammate Steven Xavier.
After a halftime score of 5-9, GCC would make further inroads through Xavier and Mark Sargeant before the Generals stalwart Devin Munroe netted the first for his team. With the Generals still up 10-7, GCC would press hard in the closing minutes and managed to pull within one through goals Kevin Spencer and Meshach Sargeant but they could not catch the Generals who went on to enjoy a 10-9 victory.
The Pepsi Hikers were all business as they took the court against GCC Vintage who enjoyed a 5-goal handicap. The Hikers managed to chip in three goals by the half to GCC’s one and added another four in the second half to come out with a 7-6 victory retaining their position on top of Pool A.
The YMCA OFHC Champs (12) managed to hold off the SHC Slick Sticks (8) to emerge with a final score of 14-13 for the Champs. Baraka Garnett was the leading scorer of the match with a hattrick for the Slick Sticks but it was not enough to overcome the Champs.
