THE voluminous Thursday evening crowd at the National Gymnasium was given much to cheer for when local champs, the Pepsi Hikers, took on Queen’s Park of Trinidad and Tobago in the men’s division of the Diamond Mineral Water (DMW) Indoor Hockey Festival.
The highly anticipated feature match of the evening lived up to its billing as both teams began their quest for victory at a blistering pace.
Queen’s Park captain Daren Cowie changed the game in the 5th minute with an opening goal to put his side up by one, but Hikers captain Robert France responded in the 7th minute through a rebound off goalkeeper Reiza Hussein.

This exchange signalled the true nature of the match and Queen’s Park striker Jordan Vieira brought the crowd to its feet yet again with a deft spin to evade one defender, weave by another and slot home his shot in the far corner of the goal.
The Hikers, however, refused to fade and France netted his second in as many minutes when he deflected a Jamarj Assanah pass from the left into the open goal behind the beaten Hussein in goal.
Vieira and Dominic Young managed to surge ahead with a pair of goals for Queen’s Park in the 13th and 14th minute respectively, before Randy Hope pulled the Hikers back within one from a penalty corner strike three minutes before halftime.

The second half produced fewer goals but even more excitement, as Aroydy Branford released one of his trademark lightning bolt penalty corner flicks into the Queen’s Park net in the 24th minute to tie the game for the third time at 4.
Queen’s Park’s Jordan Vieira stunned the local crowd by completing his hat-trick through a penalty corner in the 33rd minute to give his side what was surely expected to be the winning goal before Branford drew level again just seconds from the final buzzer to see the game end at 5-5.
In the opening fixture of the night, the Pizza Hut GCC ladies’ long-standing win streak against the Woodpecker Hikers, spanning several years, came to an end as the Hikers managed to tie the game at 2, in the final minute through guest player Allana Lewis.
Canadian ladies, the Toronto Toros, cruised to an easy 6-0 victory over Old Fort with Kaelen Watson and Jaslan Stirling scoring doubles and Angela Lancaster and Danica Jayme adding one each.

The Toros seemed unsettled in the opening minutes despite having the edge on Old Fort in possession, but as the match progressed they tightened their grip and rallied off five unanswered second half goals after a first-half that only produced one.
Bounty GCC men scored three early goals in their clash against Carib Hockey Club of Trinidad.
The Bourda side seemed to throttle back a bit too sharply as Carib managed two goals to reduce the deficit to one before GCC stepped up their game with two more late goals for the 5-2 win.

Kevin Spencer was the leading marksman for GCC scoring 4 of their 5 goals while Kareem McKenzie scored the 5th. Dylan Francis and Kern Ramsammy were the goalscorers for Carib.
The two Carib veteran division matches of the evening saw Queen’s Park destroy Antonio’s Hikers by 5-1 and the Bal-Wash-ers (comprising players from Baltimore and Washington in the USA) edging past Carib HC by 5-3.
Matches continue throughout the weekend with the finals being played from 16:00hrs tomorrow.