Defending champions off to a positive start at SASHOC National Week
The 2023 champions, Southern Free State opened their SASHOC National Week challenge on a positive note, with a 3-2 victory over the Western Province B team, which they followed with a 3-0 win over Border A.
The local side played their first match at the University of the Free State on Sunday in clear but cold Bloemfontein weather.
It was an interesting game, with Western Province dominating most of it. They were unfortunate, though, to be on the wrong side of the result as they delivered a solid team performance.
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On the contrary, last year’s champs failed to fire. However, their defensive wall was tough to penetrate, and accurate finishing saved them from going down to a shock defeat.
While happy to snag the points, their head coach Sulette Kotzee admitted that her side has a thing or two to work on going forward in the tournament.
“It’s important to get the first three points in our starting game of the tournament. It gives us an advantage going forward, but I think we did start slowly. We had patches of good play, but I still think we were missing that fire, energy, and speed.
“We also did not have much preparation. We played only three games together before the tournament, so we were a bit loose. We were not really a unit, but going forward to the next game we will try and be a bit tighter and just jell a bit more,” Kotzee said.
In their clash with Western Province B, Bianca Rees-Gibbs, who topped the scoring charts at the St Mary’s Waverley Festival, with 17 goals, nailed a penalty corner in the 15th minute to give the hosts the lead.
Western Province B, though, was playing the better hockey and Tatum O’Brien responded with a field goal to even the scores. Ten minutes later, though, Southern Free State was back in front thanks to another PC goal from Rees-Gibbs.
Kotzee’s side did well to make use of the opportunities and just a minute after Rees-Gibbs struck the Free Staters moved two goals clear when Nthati Munyai scored a field to make it 3-1.
Western Province B, unbowed, kept working hard were rewarded with a second goal in the 56th minute, with Tamar Hankey getting her name onto the score sheet. It was not quite enough as Free State won by the odd goal. Coach Kotzee said she believed her team’s composure under pressure was one of the keys to their victory.
“It is just about the mindset. We were laid back. We needed to just bring back more energy and more communication and more belief in ourselves, but the ladies worked well under pressure. They stayed calm and collected. They did not panic and that’s what helped us not to concede a third goal,” she said.
Later, in the last match of the day, Southern Free State faced Border at Eunice. It was another scrappy game, but this time they walked away with a clear-cut 3-0 victory.
In the dying minutes of the first chukka, Rees-Gibbs, playing on her school’s Astro, fired in the first goal from a penalty corner. At half-time, it was her strike that separated the teams.
Then, in the second stanza, Reatile Pitso scored twice to seal a victory which gave Southern Free State a maximum points’ haul after day one of the event.
