by Supplied

Hockey girls stick it to the competition at Easter tournament

In the first week of the holidays, the Girls’ Lugtons 1st XI Hockey team began their season attending the inaugural April Girls’ Hockey Tournament hosted by St Paul’s, with a total of six teams from as far afield as Whanganui, Taupo and Tauranga along with local teams from Ngatea and Hamilton.

With an early start on Monday morning, the girls won their first game 5-4 against Whanganui High School, with goals to Kaylee Morrison, Ayla Hall, Kate Healy, and Jess Scatchard who scored two goals.

On Monday afternoon, the team was up against much tougher opposition in Bethlehem College going down 6-0. A positive from this match was the improvement made in the second half, with the half time score 5-0 to Bethlehem a much more organised St Paul’s team, with strong defence from Cate Wilson and Darcy Hunter, only conceded one goal in the second half.

A night of team bonding and goal setting got the girls in the right mindset for both Tuesday games, starting with a solid win in the midday sun against Taupo Nui a Tia, 6-1, with goals to Ayla, Jess, Darcy, Kaylee, and Sophie Chisholm who scored a double.

Tuesday afternoon saw us up against Hauraki Plains College, who immediately put St Paul’s on the back foot, taking a 3-2 lead into half time. The second half was a much better showing from St Paul’s who fought back to win 6-4. Goal scorers: Jess, Kaylee, Sophie (2) and Darcy (2).

The final game on Wednesday, again in the hot midday sun, saw a somewhat tired team take on Sacred Heart. St Paul’s struggled to execute their game plan in the first half, finding themselves down 3-1 at half time. Again a better second half saw St Paul’s hold their own until the last seconds when Sacred Heat added one more to their tally to take the win 4-1.

Overall, for a team with a large number of new players who had not played together before, the girls can be pleased with their start to the hockey season coming away from the tournament with some solid wins and skills to improve on, as well as having a great time getting to know each other. A big thank you to our manager Ms Pitu and our coaches Reiner and Ngahuia for making this tournament possible and looking after the girls.