South Africa

The national women's hockey team arrived back from Virginia in the United States this morning. The team reached the final of the Champions Challenge tournament where they lost to New Zealand, despite being the second lowest ranked team at the event.

The South Africans gave a good account of themselves beating hosts the United States, Spain, Japan and New Zealand to make the final where they met New Zealand for the second time. However, unfortunately this time New Zealand were more determined and defeated South Africa 2-0 to grab gold.

Although the South Africans lost, they are proud of the brave performance. "The International competition that we faced is the ideal competition that we need to face in the future. Because those are the teams that are fighting from 7-12 in the world," said Lindsay Carlisle, the captain of the team.

"We definitely gained a lot of experience. There were a lot of youngsters exposed at this level and I think it's really great that they get exposed at that tournament level as opposed to playing in a series," said Mercia Maarscha, a player.

The next key tournaments for the South African women's team are the African Cup of Nations and the Commonwealth Games later this year.

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