Leeron Brumell
DEFENDING champions Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) and the National Under-19 female teams recorded comfortable wins on the opening night of the Banks 11-A-Side outdoor Hockey Tournament last Friday night.Under lights and on a lush green Thirst Park field, the defending ladies champs pulled off a lopsided 5-0 whipping on long-time rivals, Hikers.
Sonia Jardine opened the scoring for GCC in the 4th minute of play and six minutes later, Princessa Wilkie would register the first of her braces, completing same 14 minutes later to give her team a 3-0 advantage going into the half.
On the resumption, GCC would continue to out-hustle Hikers, and after 24-minutes, from a penalty corner, Trisha Woodroffe would add her name to the score sheet with the win being sealed in the 29th minute of play when Kerensa Fernandes slotted home the fifth and final goal.
In the third game of the night, the National Under-19 ladies put in a good performance to come away with the win over Old Fort.
From the first whistle, the juniors took the attack to Old Fort and for most of the first 15-minutes, the Under-19’s kept play in Old Fort’s half of the field but was denied the opportunity of scoring, hence a nil all scoreline was the order of the day at the break.
On the resumption, Old Fort got their first real opportunity to score, but couldn’t convert and 17 minutes into the game, Nicole Eastman put the Under-19 unit ahead, a lead that was doubled one minute later by Maya Persaud.
The nationals kept the pressure on Old Fort and in the 23rd minute of play, scored their third field goal from the stick of Macaela Harding.
There are four female teams in the round-robin tournament and GCC and the U-19s were down for the first female clash yesterday, with Hikers taking on Old Fort in the other.
Yesterday, eight games were played.
In male play on Friday night, GCC held Hikers – 2010 champs the last time the tournament was played – to a nil-all draw after 30 minutes, while Old Fort and Saints played to a one-all draw.
It was a match that Old Fort could have won, but they failed to capitalise on a number of penalty corners.
Saints scored the first goal of the match in the 24th minute, through Stephen King after a scramble in-front of goal and when it seemed an upset was on the cards, Joel Hunte in the final minute of play, pulled one back for Old Fort, as both teams walked away with one point for the draw.
Four more round-robin matches are set for today starting from 13:00hrs (1pm) and at the end of those games, the top two teams in both divisions play in the final.