It was a full dress rehearsal for this weekend's Women's Manawatu Division 2 Premier semifinals as the combined Whanganui team dispatched High School Hockey Club B 5-1 at Gonville Domain on Saturday.
The two teams will now rematch in the semifinals at the Twin Turfs on Saturday, with Whanganui havingto travel for the playoffs in Palmerston North despite finishing well on top of the Premier grade table with five wins from six games since the competition split in June.
"That's a little big disappointing but it is the way," said coach Colleen Baylis.
Whanganui finished on 15 points, well clear of College Development and HSHC Evergreens on nine, and were the only team with a positive differential from 29 goals scored and only eight conceded.
College and the Evergreens will rematch in the other semifinal with College having won 5-2 in their last pool game on Saturday, although Baylis is picking the game to be low scoring because while College should get through, the Evergreens have experienced players who know how to slow the game down.
"Still, I've been picking wrong winners all weekend," Baylis said.
While the favourites for the title, the games are now sudden death so Baylis will hold a "long overdue" Wednesday training session while extolling the team to give full concentration in the finals.
"I think we've just got to make sure we're consistent throughout the game - the last couple of games we've been patchy."
In the victory on Saturday, Whanganui camped in HSHC B's territory for most of the fixture, but did not capitalise on as many opportunities as they created.
Once again Lisa Grant was among the goal scorers, as was Kat Benton.
Baylis singled out Lauren Mooney for a standout game, cleaning up the middle of the field.
Whanganui have the early semifinal game at 12pm on Saturday.
It was a sad end to the Men's Division 1 season of Tech College Old Boys, beaten 5-1 by semifinal-bound Marist at the Twin Turfs.
TCOB finished well off the pace in 2016 with three wins and a draw from 12 games, scoring 15 goals while conceeding 56.
