Hockey: Otumoetai celebrate with golden goal

Otumoetai skipper Katrina Carson will acquaint herself with the rule book a bit better after being caught on the hop during what turned out to be an Intercity women's premier final thriller in Pukekohe on Saturday.
Bayleys Otumoetai bagged a remarkable third consecutive Intercity title with a 3-2 win over Hamilton's Fraser Tech - but not before Carson suffered minor heart palpitations when the match was sent into sudden death extra-time and she didn't have a clue what the format was.
The match moved to extra-time under National League rules, with two scheduled six-minute periods of sudden-death play, the first with teams dropping two players each to 9 per side and then dropping two further players to 7 per side.
"We'd battled back to get to 2-2 at fulltime, suddenly the game's finished and I turned to a couple of the girls and said "shit, what happens now" because I'd never even thought to look into it," Carson laughed yesterday.
Both teams dropped two players from the turf and Otumoetai's fitness saw them come up trumps, with powerhouse forward Dani Maunder scored the winner in the 5th minute from a penalty corner layoff from Carson, with the golden goal giving Otumoetai another title and guaranteeing a long trip home.
Carson, who netted a hat-trick of penalty corner strikes in the 4-2 semifinal win over Waikato University, said Maunder was wide open on the left and there was no need for her to go for a direct hit. "I'd had one disallowed (for being too high) that went in that wasn't the best call from the umpire. Tech had a good defensive bracket and their first runner was getting out quick so Dani was a good option."
Down 2-0 at halftime after Tech scored through Natasha Cotton and Rose Bird, Carson said it took all of her side's experience to fightback and starting turning their chances into goals. "We tried not to focus on the score at halftime but on to fix how we were playing and adjusting better to what they were doing. Halftime was a fair reflection of how the game had gone, and although we'd left ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb it wasn't insurmountable. It needed a decent tidy up of what we were doing because we were creating enough chances without putting any in the net."
Otumoetai hit back through Youth Olympian Rosie Keddell and Abby Johnston to square it up at the end of regulation.
Thames Valley United won the premier men's title 4-1 over Waikato University.