THE battle between arch nemeses, Pepsi Hikers and defending champions of the Diamond Mineral Water Hockey Festival male competition, Queen’s Park Cricket Club (QPCC), was won by the home team when they met on the third night of this year’s event.
The clash at Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, which finished early yesterday morning, had the crowd at the edge of their seats as the Trinidadian club staged a comeback after being down 1-4 at the half.

Captain of the Guyanese club, Robert France, and Aroydy Branford scored two goals each in the first period to carry their side to a commanding lead, but Aidan De Gannes answered in the 35th minute, before Shawn Lee Quay scored his second goal just prior to the final whistle, which kept the crowd tense until the last shot.

Hikers, who won the Open Men’s Division in 2016 and who have seven titles under their belt were unbeaten up to yesterday afternoon.
They recorded a 5-4 victory over the Bounty GCC on Wednesday evening, before beating Saints 7-1 on Thursday night and Old Fort 5-2 on Friday afternoon.

VENTURES TAKE LEAD
In the ExxonMobil Open Female division, the Ventures from Trinidad got past the GBTI GCC team 4-2 yesterday afternoon to take over the lead.
GCC, who won the title last year have won three and drawn one of their five games (10 points), while Ventures are on 12 points from four wins in an equal number of games.
Yesterday was a good day for the Woodpecker Hikers. The Guyanese team, who lost their opening three encounters, bounced back with two wins.

Maria Munroe was the architect of the victories. Yesterday morning she fired in three goals while Nicole Eastman added a pair to lead Woodpecker Hikers to a 7-1 win over Saints.
Later in the day, Hikers defeated the Shandy Carib Magnolia 4-3 with Munroe scoring twice (first-half goals). The game proved to be a come-from-behind victory since the Mags led 3-2 at the break, before Kenisha Williams levelled the game in the opening minute of the second period. Ten minutes later Cher King sealed the victory.

The STAG Over-35 battle is also heating up with defending champions QPCC dominating the competition. They were unbeaten with four wins from five games (one draw) to lead with 13 points. In their lone clash yesterday, they whipped the Antonio’s Hickers 7-1.
Eighteen teams are playing 54 games over five days in the festival. The finals of the competition are scheduled to start from 16:40hrs today with the Over-35 clash, followed by the Open Women’s and the Open Men’s championship contests.