Americas

National Indoor Hockey

Tiffany Solomon

The Georgetown Cricket Club carted off both the men's and women's titles of the Guyana Hockey Board of Control, GT&T-sponsored National Indoor Hockey Championships which ended on Sunday evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

The Bourda girls secured a 1-0 victory over Everest Hikers while their GCC male compatriots won 8-7 in penalty flicks after being held 2-2 against Old Fort Hi-Flyers at the end of regulation time.

In the women's competition, GCC repeated their 1-0 victory in the earlier pool round over pre-tournament favourite Everest Hikers. The lone goal in the final was scored by Tiffany Solomon in the 24th minute from a powerful short-corner flick.

The 30-minute game drew a lot of excitement from the crowd as both teams showed good possession skills in creating several chances to score but couldn't find their target in the run of play. GCC eventually capitalised on the stronger bench rotation to keep the tempo up throughout the second half and eventually pulled it off from the short corner that was awarded to them.

While the GCC men's team achieved success, it was much tougher going for them against the youthful Old Fort Hi-Flyers.

After GCC dished out a 6-2 beating to Old Fort in the pool round, their younger opponents (Old Fort) regrouped and brought more enthusiasm and determination to the final.

Old Fort opened the scoring in the 12th minute of the 40-minute men's final through Adrian Bryant and went two up when Ascofu Simon capitalised on some slack GCC defence to hammer home the second goal in the 21st minute.

The experienced GCC however stuck to their game and created several chances which were matched by the outstanding goal-keeping of Tony Cole for Old Fort. The Old Fort defence finally wore under the pressure and conceded two goals through Phillip and Alan Fernandes just six and five minutes from full-time.

With the game ending at 2-2, teams went into a penalty shoot-out for the second consecutive year to determine the winner and at the end of the ten shots (five shots each team), the score remained even at 5-5, but GCC finally sealed the issue when their goal-keeper Desmond Durant made the save against Dexter Barry's shot, giving GCC the victory by a final score of 8-7.

The most valuable player for the men's competition was Everest Hikers' Jerazeno `Jerry' Bell, while Sonia Jardine of GCC was voted the women's MVP.

Meanwhile, the GT&T national indoor championships have set the stage for the upcoming Diamond Mineral Water International Indoor Festival slated for November 25-28 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

Teams from Canada, USA, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados have confirmed their participation and Guyana's top four local teams, GCC, Old Fort, Everest Hikers and Police will be representing Guyana.

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