Eunice to meet DGC in St Mary’s Festival final
Eunice and Durban Girls College will meet in the final of the St Mary’s Hockey Festival after overcoming their opponents in two thrilling semi-final matches. The match between the defending champions and last year’s number seven team will be a rematch of Saturday’s match that saw DGC triumph over Eunice 4 – 0.
Eunice will hope that they have banished that encounter out of their memories and will walk into the tie with a different mindset, while DGC will hope to reprise the nightmare.
Eunice booked their spot in the final after overcoming Paarl Gim in an edge-of-the-seat semi-final tie that could easily have served as the final. The two teams looked a little nervy in the first few minutes. The frenetic running and passing gave way to a composed contest after Bianca Rees-Gibbs scored the opener for Eunice five minutes into the match.
Both teams showed why they had made it this far with a display of organised gameplay and great structure as they felt each other out, trying to find weaknesses in the other. In their previous matches, each time Ian Naude’s charges made trips into the opposition half, they put teams under pressure with good passes, but against Eunice, they failed to connect in the final third.
Eunice’s star player, Rees-Gibbs almost made it 2 – 0 for her side when she went on a high press and stole the ball from a Paarl Gim defender close to the edge of the D. Her shot at goal beat the goalkeeper and defender but hit the post before trickling out.
Paarl Gim ramped up their attack in the last 11 minutes of the match, throwing bodies into the Eunice half. Their relentless attacking paid off when they scored the equalizer with a minute to go. As the crowd settled down and Paarl Gim threw players behind the ball in defense, Nika Coertzen’s unit launched one last attack. Favouring their right-hand side attack, Eunice fed the ball to Rees-Gibbs, who furthered her campaign for the Player of the Tournament honours with a second goal for her team with 20 seconds remaining in the match.
Durban Girls College made it to the final thanks to some sensational goalkeeping efforts from Ella Carstens. The DGC keeper, who developed her skills in backyard battles against her older brother, Jake Carstens who played for Hilton College two years ago stood tall in DGC’s semi-final tie against St Stithians.
The Johannesburg team took control of the contest early on, dominating possession and attacking the DGC goal, making numerous circle entries, with intent. In the moments the DGC defense lacked, Saints ran into a wall erected by Carstens.
Lance Louw’s charges came into the tie having done their research and marked DGC captain Emily Macquet out of the tie. With Macquet immobilized, DGC struggled to put Saints under pressure. In the moments that they entered the Saints’ final third, they were met with a strong defense.
Chardonay Penniston’s team almost found themselves 1 – 0 down with seven minutes left on the clock, but again, Carstens was equal to the task. That effort from Tori Tanner-Ellis was followed by a period of relentless attacking from Saints, but DGC was equal to the task, and the match ended in a 0 – 0 draw.
Unlike most other matches that went straight to penalty shootouts after finishing in a draw, the semi-final tie between Saints and DGC went into extra-time, with the glory goal stipulation. DGC started the five-minute period strongly, keeping Saints on the back foot, but found the Saints defense impregnable. Not even the ejection of a Saints player with just under two minutes to go weakened their defense.
The match went to penalty shootouts where DGC won by 4 – 3, courtesy of a penalty that had to be retaken after a back stick from the St Stithians goalkeeper on the final shootout.
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