EXPERIENCE was on show in full splendour last evening as the GCC Vintage side outshone the younger Bounty GCC side in the finals of the Noble House Goals Galore Indoor Hockey Championships at the National Gymnasium.

The Vintage side had previously escaped elimination at the semi-final stage via a 1 goal margin after a tiring semi-final battle against the OFHC Warriors, but rallied to beat their more youthful opponents.
According to Captain Damon Woodruff, while his side was not on par as It relates to the energy to run pound for pound with their opponents, they were able to use a few tricks en route to the title.
“You’ve got to learn to pace yourself because we are much older and we used our knowledge and ability and experience to our advantage,” he said.
He, however, praised the tournament, saying “they had some young teams which is good to see, there were some big handicaps, so we had to work hard to try and beat them, we lost one or two games but the final was just a lone goal difference and it was really hard fought.”
Vintage started a goal up with a +6 handicap while their opponents had +5 and they immediately converted it to a two goal advantage through Devin Hooper two minutes after the opening whistle.
Bounty responded four minutes later through Mark Sargeant, but Vintage rolled back the years with some aggressive play with Hooper scoring his second goal of the night and Edghill adding two of his own.
The Bounty side was by no means about to surrender their title and dropped in two quick-fire penalty corner goals from the tournament’s highest goal-scorer, Kevin Spencer, but eventually ended short by two goals, leaving the scoreline 10-8.
Meanwhile, the Pizza Hut GCC ladies completed the club’s domination of the competition with an easy win over Saints to win the female trophy.
Pizza Hut captain Kerensa Fernandes said, “Im very happy because every year we have this tournament and GCC pizza hut ladies always have a difficult time because we always get zero handicap or a minus handicap, but (in)this tournament we did pretty well to win all our games.
The young Saints team were able to hold on for their semifinal win against the much more experienced Woodpecker Hikers for a 13-9 victory.
Saints started with a +12 goal handicap, leaving the Pizza hut ladies a task and a half to overcome that deficit especially against the eventual best goalkeeper of the tournament, Donyale Nurse who blocked more than her fair share of shots.
However, the Pizza Hut ladies were still able to secure their win; Marzana Fiedtkou and Gabriella Xavier netting four each, with tournament’s topscorer, Sonia Jardine and Aliyah Gordon scoring hat-tricks and Fernandes topping it off with a double.