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Flora GCC Spartans complete Three-peat of Magnolias Indoor Hockey Championships
The successful Flora GCC team along with coach and President of the Guyana Hockey Board Phillip Fernandes celebrate their triumph in Trinidad.
The Flora GCC Spartans female hockey team created history on Sunday evening when they won their third consecutive under-21 female Magnolias Indoor Championships at the Woodbrook Youth Centre in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
The Guyanese side flew into the twin-island republic last Friday to contest the weekend tournament for only the third year of the under-21 competition’s existence. Two years ago in the inaugural competition, an inexperienced GCC had shocked the teams of Trinidad, the highly ranked hockey-playing island, by carting off the 2008 trophy. Their repeat of this success in 2009 was just as surprising and unexpected but a third and unprecedented victory, in all competitions of the tournament, was the sweetest one yet.
With the loss of Captain and key midfielder Trisha Woodroffe, the young side knew that it would be particularly difficult this year to match the success to which they had become accustomed. In their opening match against hosts Magnolias, GCC took an early 2 goal lead, only to see it slip away in the fading minutes with Magnolias equalising in the last 4 minutes and then scoring a winner through a penalty stroke at the final buzzer. According to coach, Philip Fernandes, the team was disappointed but not too disheartened by the loss as they suffered a bit of unfortunate luck including hitting the goalpost no less than 4 times during the match.
The following day, Saturday 15th, they won 2 of their 3 scheduled games, being a 3-1 defeat of Ventures and a 5-0 drubbing of Magnolias to whom they had lost the previous evening. The tournament split the six competing teams into 2 groups and scheduled teams to play each other twice in the pool round. Their final match of Saturday however saw them succumb to Ventures by 0-1 in a match that had little bearing on their progress as they had already made the semi-finals.
The semi-final match contested against Paragon proved more difficult than anticipated as the Trinidadian side would take an early lead through a goal-mouth scramble. GCC seemed the more purposeful side and dominated the second half eventually getting their breakthrough from Captain and inspirational leader, Gabriella Xavier, who unsettled the nets with an accurate penalty corner flick. The teams would finish the match at one apiece leaving the outcome to be decided on a penalty stroke shootout. Goalkeeper Alysa Xavier would prove to be the star of the match by saving many of the opposing penalties and even scoring one of her own. It would take until the second flick of sudden death however for GCC to secure the spot in the final as defender Marzana Fiedtkou slammed home her stroke following a fine save of the Paragon striker by Xavier. The final against the highly touted Notre Dame was another nail-biter as GCC’s Dominique DeGroot completed a well-executed build-up play to finish with aplomb after getting by the Notre Dame goalkeeper. GCC would have to defend their lead for most of the match against a side that featured many Trinidadian junior nationals and one Barbados international as a guest player.
Notre Dame piled on the pressure in the second half of play and created several opportunities at the GCC net, but steady defending from the Fiedtkou sisters, Talia and Marzana, along with another superb performance by Alysa Xavier in the goal, matched every one. It was GCC’s Samantha Fernandes however who came the closest to scoring and extending her team’s lead with a swift counterattack that missed the empty Notre Dame goal by inches.
The final buzzer would leave the young Flora GCC side unbeaten in the tournament and giving them their third consecutive winner’s trophy. Alysa Xavier carted off the Most Valuable Goalkeeper prize for the second year in a row at the end of the competition. The young side will be eligible to compete without losing any players to the age barrier for two more years and are expected to be clear favourites in 2011.
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