THE Guyana Hockey Board’s (GHB) 2017 season got off to an early start with the Bounty/Antonio’s Grill One-Day hockey competition at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, on Sunday night. Despite a few early showers, brilliant sunshine emerged on an immaculate Providence stadium field which provided players the best opportunity to show off their skills and entertain the modest crowd.
The Pizza Hut GCC ladies took advantage by defeating all challengers and completing their dominant showing with a 5–0 drubbing of Woodpecker Hikers in the final.
The Bounty GCC men matched their club-mates with the narrowest of victories in the men’s division that was decided by a penalty shootout.
Pizza Hut GCC stormed through the women’s competition scoring 33 goals in five matches and only conceding one. Tournament Most Valuable Player, Aliyah Gordon of Pizza Hut amassed a leading 11 goals for her team which was almost double the next highest score in the competition.
After a spirited first half in the women’s final that saw the Woodpecker Hikers contain GCC to just one goal, the Pizza Hut ladies rattled in 4 more unanswered goals in the second half for the easy victory.
The men’s division saw the eventual victors Bounty GCC take a different path to the summit, as they lost a close duel to the defending champs Pepsi Hikers by 3-2 in the early rounds. With the Hikers playing unbeaten right up to the final, they entered as heavy favourites in their rematch against GCC who had brushed aside Old Fort by 5-0 in their semi-final.
The two sides produced some wonderfully entertaining hockey in an unforgettable men’s final that saw GCC take the lead twice but the Hikers drew level on both occasions to result in a final score of 3-3.
Tournament Most Valuable Player for men, Dwayne Scott, was particularly outstanding in defence for the Bourda side in thwarting several Hikers’ raids on goal where Scott found himself outnumbered.
The match then went into a penalty shootout to determine the winner. After Aroydy Branford and Jamarj Assanah for the Hikers and Kevin Spencer and Kareem McKenzie for GCC all scored their penalties, Hikers’ Andrew Stewart saw his effort go just wide of the post after a fine save by goalkeeper Medroy Scotland.
Fittingly MVP Dwayne Scott had the final say in the match and succeeded by the narrowest of margins as his initial shot hit the left upright post before he pounced on the rebound to put in into the net for the win.