THE thrilling Men’s final was a fitting farewell to the 2019 Noble House Goals Galore Indoor Hockey Championships, as matches concluded on Sunday night at the National Gymnasium.

The top-ranked PEPSI Hikers with a zero-goal handicap faced YMCA OFHC Top Form with a 5-goal advantage. The surprise of the match came three minutes after the start when entertaining Top Form midfielder Omar Hopkinson completed a skilful individual move into the back of the Hikers goal. Hikers would now have six goals to overcome.

Top Form held firm but tournament top scorer Aroydy Branford scored in the 13th minute with a penalty corner missile to open Hikers’ account.

With no further goals scored in the 20-minute first half and the score at 6-1 to Top Form, Hikers had their work cut out for them. Captain Robert France with a nifty deflection and midfielder Jamarj Assanah launched the comeback with goals in the 25th and 29th minutes. Newcomer Louis Adams, however, completed a left-side Top Form attack with a first-time shot into the open goal, immediately following Assanah’s goal to move the scores to 7-3.

With ten minutes remaining, and needing four goals to tie the score, Hikers replaced goalkeeper Hoyte with an additional field player and piled pressure on the Top Form defence. Branford scored a second penalty corner and a field goal in the following four minutes with the ploy working superbly well for the Hikers.

Captain Robert France brought Hikers within one in the final minute of play, but despite their hurry, time expired leaving Top Form to celebrate the 7-6 victory.
Paul D’Andrade of YMCA OFHC Top Form was adjudged the best goalkeeper of the men’s division while Aroydy Branford of PEPSI Hikers, with 35 goals, received the Most Goals award.

The women’s final saw the unbeaten Spartans enjoy a 5-goal handicap to GBTI GCC Tigers’ 3.
The pressure was on Tigers to score against what had been a solid Spartans defence, led by captain Makeda Harding. The breakthrough came just five minutes into play for Tigers, through the most unassuming manner.

Sandy Roopnarine, who had been having a quiet tournament so far, pounced on a loose ball in the scoring circle and evaded goalkeeper Jessica Mittelholzer with a shot past her for the Tigers’ opener.

Marzana Fiedtkou, who had put in an MVP performance throughout the tournament, scored next for Tigers with a 7th minute penalty corner, which was her first of three goals in the match.

With Tigers already having made up the deficit by the 7th minute, Spartans threw caution to the wind and pressed Tigers defence from the restart.
While Spartans’ effort created several chances, goalkeeper Natalie Hing was up to the challenge on each occasion and kept Spartans scoreless.

Fiedtkou was the next to impact the game with a 22nd minute goal off a counterattack. Roopnarine, Shebiki Baptiste and Fiedtkou each scored once more to put the game well beyond the reach of Spartans for a final score of 9-5.

Jessica Mittelholzer of Bingo Spartans was selected as Best Goalkeeper of the tournament while Marzana Fiedtkou’s 20 goals gave her the Top Goalscorer Award.