THE GEORGETOWN Cricket Club Tigers and veteran side Hickers both repeated their 2013 victories in this year’s Diamond Mineral Water (DMW) Indoor Hockey Festival while the PEPSI Hikers returned to former glory with a win in the men’s division. Last Sunday’s final night of the festival produced three high-scoring matches that entertained the crowd with displays of skill and speed.

The pre-tournament favourites and national champions, PEPSI Hikers squared off against a determined Old Fort for the men’s final and the losers who had just come off their third comeback win of the tournament with two goals in the closing minutes of their semi-final encounter against GCC, entered the final with confidence and strong fan support.
However, the Hikers had experience, a sound game plan and a boisterous cheering section of their own and both teams regarded each other carefully as the game began with Old Fort falling off to a half-court defence and the Hikers quite predictably enjoying most of possession.
A moment of brilliance however by MVP Jamar Assanah changed the evening completely as he outpaced his marker and latched on to the end of a Robert France pass to deflect the ball into the open goal for a 1-0 Hikers lead.
Old Fort responded like a disrupted nest of ants as the pace of the game immediately elevated to fever pitch, with Aderemi Simon and Jason Dos Santos trying to make inroads to the Hikers defence.
During this time, Andrew Stewart completed a Hikers counterattacking move and took his team’s lead to two goals, which was later made 3-0 when overlapping right back Shane Samuels scored in the final minute of the first half.
Old Fort showed moments of skilful hockey in the second half and had it not been for outstanding goalkeeping by Tony Cole, the Hikers would have scored more than the two goals they managed in the second half to come away with a 5-0 win and their sixth festival title.
The GCC Tigers rounded out a dominant performance by improving on their pool match result against Spice with a score of 9-0 in the final.
The one-sided affair saw a hattrick of goals from captain Sonia Jardine who led her team throughout the competition with her entertaining stick skills and clinical finishing while Kerensa Fernandes and defender Trisha Woodroffe both scored doubles.
Promising juniors Ashley DeGroot and Dacia Woodroffe rounded out the score sheet for the winners with solitary strikes of their own.
The Hikers managed to retain the Carib Veterans trophy for the third straight year in upstaging Old Old Fort by 4-2 margin, as the duo of MVP Jerazeno ‘Skillaxe’ Bell and midfielder Devin Munroe proved too much for the red army to handle.
Munroe scored two of his three goals in the opening minutes to see the Hikers to a comfortable lead from the start and despite two goals from Dexter Wyles and Chris Low-Koan, Bell unleashed a bullet of a penalty corner into the roof of the net and Munroe netted his third to claim the 4-2 victory in the end.
Hikers’ Assanah was named the Most Valuable Player for the male category while the award fell to GCC Tigers’ Sonia Jardine on the distaff side, with Bell being named the MVP for the Veterans category.
In the goalkeeping category, the best goalkeepers on show were definitely Tony Cole of Old Fort for the men, Brianna Gordon of Spice for the ladies and Audwin Graham for the veterans Old Old Fort.