Hockey Woolston clinches premier title

Press, 12 June 1989, Page 24

Hockey Woolston clinches premier title

Woolston won the 1989 premier women’s hockey championship at the week-end with a 2-0 win over the titleholder, Burnside.

Woolston shared the title with Burnside in 1987 and finished a point behind Burnside last year, but had its revenge later in the season when it beat Burnside in a national inter-club quarterfinal match and went on to win the championship.

Both teams were without three players. All are in Brisbane with the New Zealand women’s team. Woolston was without its goalkeeper, Sharon Amos, and two forwards, Chris Arthur and Sue Duggan.

Burnside was without Kate Trolove, Mary Clinton and Keirran O’Grady. Woolston took an early lead. Sally Ormandy made a break down the left wing, beat several defenders and flicked the ball past the goalkeeper. Lynn McDonell, filling in for Amos in goal, made some important stops, denying the Burnside forwards the chance to equalise. Isobel Thomson dominated the midfield for Woolston, ensuring a good supply of ball to the forwards, well led by

Maia Lewis. It was Lewis who scored the second goal, from a penalty corner, in the second half. Woolston forced eight penalty corners to two in the game, an indication of the possession it had. Sharon Bell, who had been Burnside’s most incisive forward, was subbed off in the second half. Selwyn 2, Carlton 1 Carlton could not convert a number of scoring opportunities into goals and had to bow to Selwyn, which made the most of the few chances it had. Lyndal McGruther and Barbara Mitchell scored for Selwyn and Cathy Thompson replied with a penalty corner for Carlton.

Carlton dominated the second half but it met a strong defence led by Geneva Kara, whose teammates had reason to be grateful for an excellent stop on the goal-line in the first half. Harewood 1, Pegasus 0 Harewood was thankful for a goal 10 minutes into the first half by Louise Good. She swept in a cross from the right to score the only goal.

For the remainder of the match Harewood maintained a territorial

and possession advantage but in spite of desperate efforts could not add to its lead.

Pegasus was able to break out of defence from time to time and when it did there was always the danger that it would force the equaliser. It had several penalty-corners but could not convert any of them into goals. Robyn Watson and Michelle New were sound defenders for Pegasus and Marie Corcoran in the Pegasus goal competently blocked and cleared many Harewood shots at goal. The forwards built up play quickly through the midfield but had difficulty controlling the ball inside the 25m area. Lisa Sutherland dribbled forcefully for Harewood at inside-right and on defence Rachel Petrie, Helen Littleworth and Alisa Roddick played soundly. Final points table:

PW D L F A Pt Wools. 10 9 1 0 33 919 Burnse 10 7 1 2 27 1015 Selwyn 10 5 2 3 20 1112 Harew. 10 4 2 4 17 1710 Carlton 10 2 0 8 13 32 4 Pegasus 10 0 010 4 35 0