Honours shared in top-of-table thriller

Te Aowera team member Lillian Hema (right) is put under pressure by Gisborne Girls’ High’s Charli Candy in a Poverty Bay women’s club hockey game on the turf at Harry Barker Reserve on Saturday. The students ran out 9-0 victors, including five goals to Lucy McHugh. Picture by Liam Clayton

Close encounters highlighted Week 4 of Poverty Bay club hockey including a classic duel between last year’s men’s competition grand finalists.

As predicted, defending champions YMP A and Lytton Old Boys Traktion produced the men’s game of the season to date on Friday night on the Hain Farming Turf at Harry Barker Reserve.

It ended appropriately in a 1-all draw — a fair reflection of two evenly-matched teams on the night.

“YMP had the bulk of the possession in the first quarter but Traktion sneaked a goal (Patrick Ferry the scorer) past their defence to take a one-nil lead into the second quarter,” hockey commentator Tony Scragg said.

And that’s where it stayed as the sides went into the halftime break.

In the third quarter, Chris Fox scored the equaliser and YMP piled on the pressure in the final period but could not crack the LOB defence.

“It was definitely the best game we’ve seen so far this season in the men’s competition,” Scragg said.

Gisborne Boys’ High School dug deep to hold the experience-stacked Waituhi to a 1-all draw.

“Boys High’ got on the score sheet first in the second quarter (Ollie Egan the scorer) but Waituhi (Hylam Tukariri) were quick to reply.”

Both goals came from penalty corners.

“It was 1-all at the break and while Waituhi forced more penalty corners than the students, they could not capitalise,” Scragg said.

The students had a golden chance to go ahead in the final quarter when they were awarded a penalty stroke, but agonisingly hit the post.

“That’s a good result for the school team and it will give them a lot of confidence moving forward,” Scragg said.

In the women’s competition, YMP B underlined their “dark horse” status in beating PGG Wrightson Ngatapa 1-0.

A goal to Meredith Akuhata-Brown separated the sides.

“That was the shock result of the weekend, and it really mixes up the women’s points table,” Scragg said.

“It was a good effort by Meredith to score the winner. She normally plays goalkeeper.”

Lytton Old Boys Masters and YMP B fought out a 1-all draw to get Week 4 play rolling on Thursday night .

“It was a just reward for both teams to take away a share of the points in what was a really good game of end-to-end hockey,” Masters team member Scragg said.

“We had our scoring chances and they had theirs.”

Bryce Rickard (Masters) and Andrew Carter (YMP) were the goal-scorers.

Reigning champions YMP A women were too strong for Paikea, leaving the “Pinkies” in their wake to the tune of 7-0.

“It was nil-all after the first quarter but then the floodgates opened, particularly in the second half, when we saw a YMP A side of old,” Scragg said.

Lucy McHugh was in goal-hungry form for YMP, finding the net five times.

Gisborne Girls’ High School made light work of Te Aowera in a 9-0 rout including hat-tricks to Keeley Smiler and Brooke Brown.

“That scoreline would have been a good confidence boost for the girls. TA had no answer to their attacking flair,” Scragg said.

On Sunday, GMC Green women accounted for clubmates GMC Kowhai 5-0, with Amy Angland scoring three times..

“The scoreline was not the convincing one that some people might have expected. It was a good effort by Kowhai,” Scragg said.

“The Green Machine have some work to do and they will need to do it ahead of their clash this weekend with

YMP A.”

RESULTS

 Men — YMP B 1 (Andrew Carter) LOB Resene Masters 1 (Bryce Rickard).

YMP A 1 (Chris Fox) LOB Traktion 1 (Patrick Ferry).

GBHS 1st XI 1 (Ollie Egan) Waituhi 1 (Hylam Tukariri).

Women — YMP A 7 (Lucy McHugh 5, Maia Rickard, Moelani Tureia-Siataga) Paikea 0.

Gisborne Girls’ High 1st XI 9 (Keeley Smiler 3, Brooke Brown 3, Chloe Kapene, Emily Petro, Mya Carrington) Te Aowera 0.

YMP B 1 (Meredith Akuhata-Brown)  Ngatapa 0.

GMC Green 5 (Amy Angland 3, Tori Wharepapa 2) GMC Kowhai 0.