VINTAGE produced the surprise of the tournament with a quarter final, nail-biting defeat of Pepsi Hikers as the Noble House Goals Galore Indoor Hockey Championships continued on Friday evening at the National Gymnasium.

The nature of the handicap format provides an opportunity for lower seeded teams to compete with those at the top by virtue of a goal handicap.

Bounty GCC also saw themselves through to the semi-finals with both teams awaiting the outcome of early Saturday matches to determine their opponents.

In the women’s competition, Saints and Pizza Hut GCC are similarly through to the semis thus far.

With Vintage enjoying a +6 goal difference at the start, the Hikers face the pressure of needing to play high tempo hockey from the beginning.

Their superior speed and conditioning have given them the edge in the past, while Vintage would be tired from an earlier defeat at the hands of Old Fort Damn.

Vintage, however, employing a defensive strategy managed to limit the opportunities of the Hikers in the first half of play which ended at 2 – 7 from Hikers field goals by Jamarj Assanah and Robert France and a penalty corner goal by Philip Fernandes for Vintage.

The second half would see a change of pace for Vintage as the tiring side conceded four goals in the first ten minutes to draw the Hikers to within one.

Vintage managed to slow the game sufficiently, however, to regain balance and managed to secure several penalty corners despite the overwhelming pressure by the Hikers. Captain Devin Hooper scored a penalty for Vintage in the 31st minute and Fernandes slotted home two more penalty corner strikes to complete his hat-trick and give Vintage a four goal cushion.

The final three minutes produced three goals for the Hikers who stepped up the pressure with an all-out attack but would run out of time. The wily Vintage managed to use the clock to their advantage in the dying minutes to pull off the 10-9 win and gain a semi-final berth.

Old Fort Damn had earlier in the evening handed Vintage their second loss of the tournament with a 9-11 beating. Jason DeSantos, Jael Gaskin and Ascofu Simon each scored two goals for Old Fort with Simon entertaining the crowd with a brilliant solo run to finish his second.

Dwayne Scott scored two and Devin Hooper a penalty corner goal for Vintage. SHC New Tricks made up a two-goal handicap to pull off the win against HHC Recruits by 15-14.

The victory positioned the New Tricks to challenge Old Fort Damn in the men’s quarter finals. Bounty GCC was also in fine form as they routed Old Fort Gosh by 19-14 in the final men’s match of the day.

In ladies competition, Saints surprised all spectators by pulling off a 13-11 win against the Woodpecker Hikers.

With Saints enjoying a ten-goal handicap margin, the Hikers opted to play without a goalkeeper, giving them an extra field player in attack.

The strategy almost paid off but Saints were able to capitalize on one of the few counterattacks with Nia Williams scoring in the empty Hikers goal.

Captain Maria Munroe led the scoring for Hikers with four goals while Nicolette Fernandes, who also plays squash , scored a hatrick and Latacia Chung added two.