It was a rare double success weekend for the local teams in their Manawatu divisions as Tech College Old Boys came from behind to beat Palmerston North Boys High 2-1, while the combined Whanganui women defeated College Development 5-3 to stay on top of their grade.
Having yet another Premier Men's away match to the Twin Turfs, TCOB were missing four players but had been reinforced by the return of three high school students, along with Craig Ritani shoring up centre.
After surviving three penalty corners by the 15 minute mark, TCOB let in an overhead shot that exposed them at the back, trailing 1-0 at halftime.
"It was a fairly competitive game, both side's had opportunities," said coach Russell Burgess.
"They had too many options, our guys weren't playing quite strong enough in the first half, but they rectified that in the second half."
TCOB started putting some better passes into the circle, with one of them a ripper to which Bryce McKenzie got the lightest of deflections to lock up the scores.
"PNBHS were bitterly disappointed because they didn't think we touched it, but we did," said Burgess.
McKenzie repeated the effort with eight minutes left to give his team the win in his last game for them this season.
Andrew Jurgens played in goal for visitors and had a very good game, while Ryan Balsley covered the back quite well.
TCOB's third win for the year moved them up into fifth spot on the ladder, but too late to reach the semifinals as their opponents this weekend, PN Marist, are six points ahead in fourth spot.
Burgess said after beating a PNBHS team currently peaking for their big school tournaments, his team want to finish the year on a high with another win at the Twin Turfs.
The Whanganui team kept their Women's Division 2 Premier momentum going with the win at Gonville Domain on Saturday.
Their 5-3 victory moves them to 12 points on the table, clear of HSHC Evergreens (9), College Development (6) and HSHC B (3).
Evergreens beat their clubmates 5-2 in the other game.
Whanganui have now amassed four wins from five games since the Premier group split off from the rest of the division, scoring 24 goals while conceding only seven.
They will play HSHC B again this weekend at Gonville, before the start of the finals the following week.