St Anne’s
In an emotional send off, St Anne’s played their hearts out at the SPAR KZN School Girls Hockey Challenge. The Grand Finals was Saints last appearance under the careful guidance of former SA Men’s coach Carlos Pereira who is leaving our shores to take up a post in Holland.
Pereira’s girls did him proud earning a well deserved bronze medal in a hotly contested Grand Finals. Saints met St John’s from down the road in a magnificent display of field hockey, with the whistle blowing on a superb, evenly matched game. With no goals on the board for either team, and St Anne’s dominating the possession peppering St John’s goalie, Amanda Khumalo with attempts, three players from each team stepped up for the penalty shootout.
In the first round, St Anne’s went first with Grace Kitshoff dashing in and fading to the right of the goals and easily getting her push past Khumalo to take the lead. Kelly Pearson stepped up next for St John’s and was blocked by Megan Rebstein-Dovey, as the Saints keeper tracked Pearson as she weaved right and then left, Rebstein-Dovey dived right knocking the ball away from Pearson. Both players then charged to the edge of the D, with Rebstein-Dovey committing herself to a forward dive nudging the ball out of the D, thwarting St John’s first attempt.
In an almost identical fashion, Jessica Redfern followed Kitshoff’s efforts almost to the letter, scoring St Anne’s second goal, the score now looking good on 2-0, half way through the second round. Next up for St John’s was Kelly-Ann Fjellvik who skilfully took the ball down the centre, moved slightly to her right and slotted the ball under a falling Rebstein-Dovey, taking the score to 2-1.
In the third and final round, captain for St Anne’s Brady Wiseman worked the ball in, passing Khumalo and then chasing down her ball that agonisingly scraped past the upright, putting all the pressure on St John’s to try and level the game to take it to sudden death. Captain for St John’s Amy Karlsen stepped up and did superbly well to get away from an encroaching Rebstein-Dovey, magically knocking in her shot only to watch it shave the right hand post, sadly missing.
St Anne’s took the win from St John’s who were in their first ever Grand Finals, with the score of 2-1.
In St Anne’s six appearances, they have always finished in the top four, with a gold in the inaugural tournament in 2011, a fourth in 2013 and now their fourth consecutive bronze, dating back to the 2014 tournament.
