Canty beats cup holder

Press, 4 September 1980, Page 28

Canty beats cup holder

Special correspondent

Canterbury conquered atrocious underfoot conditions to convincingly beat the K Cup holder, Eastern. Southland, 5-2, in the national women’s hockey tournament at Blenheim yesterday. Some areas of the field resembled a lake and players had to splash their way up and down the .field, but, nevertheless, both teams kept up a high standard of play. . Overhead conditions improved as the game progressed. Later in the day Waikato beat Northland, 2-1, and that effectively spelt the end to Eastern’s chances of defending the cup. - The games left Eastern and Waikato tied on points

lid pool A and goal differences put the North Island side into the matches which will decide the finalists. Canterbury remained unbeaten in the pool; From Pool B the other qualifiers are Auckland which beat Wellington, 2-0, yesterday and Hawke’s Bay which had a 2-0 victory over Otago?? ' . Today Canterbury will meet Auckland at 1 p.m. and Waikato plays the Bay at 2.30 pim. In yesterday’s match Canterbury opened the scoring after lOmin with a fine goal from Nicky Sheriff, but Eastern came back quickly with Marilyn McKenzie equalising from a penalty stroke. \ 4

Canterbury then swung

back on attack and a fine dub run between Judith Phillips and Shirley Haig ended in a goal from Mrs Haig. Before half-time Miss Sheriff added another to give her team a handy lead. In the first match of the day, played in 'teeming rain on a field that was mainly awash Canterbury B emerged with a narrow Floyd Shield section win over Ashburton. ■ The teams finished respectively second and third in their pool after Manawatu. In the Mills Cup section Malvern drew, 2-2, with Taranaki to finish first in its pool while South Canterbury beat West Coast, 4-0, in the Umpire Trophy to head its pool.