Thanks to Madi Wright for writing this piece as a supporter of the women's Prems, player in Prem 3 and coach of Division 1 - Is this a first Club 'triple'? As all these teams are appearing in a Grand Final on Saturday (17 October)!
Premier Women
ABC’s Premier Women’s 2020 team is full of talent from longtime ABC'ers to out-of-towners. They’ve come together this season to perform as a cohesive and resilient side. This awesome side has had an amazing season, consistently dominating the competition with strikers who are the best in their grade! This squad played their first Intercity Final last weekend proving how strong they’ve become. Unfortunately, they lost out in sudden death shootouts – none of the spectators have nails left after this extremely close game!
Moving on quickly from this set-back, they played Takapuna in Harbour Hockey's semi’s last night. Going up early with a slide left PC (Tonya Botherway), the girls dominated the whole first quarter, hammering the keeper. In the second and third quarter Takapuna finally entered the game with a few close opportunities but Madee was on her toes along with the brilliant defence keeping everything out. Takapuna then made the decision to pull their keeper with 8 minutes to go. Olivia Shannon wasn’t letting them get away with that and quickly countered their move with two beautiful reverse shots resulting in a 3-nil win!
Hopefully this resilience and goal scoring will continue this Saturday in their Harbour Final against Hibiscus Dairy Flat. This is must watch game, so come along a give your support.
Premier 3 Women
Premier 3 Women's success has been a long time coming, but with the same core group of girls playing together for the past few years we made the 2019 semi’s, so it was only a matter of time before we made it to the Grand Final. Previously it has taken half a season for us to warm-up and begin to connect with our goals and objectives. Not this year, we came out on top from the get-go, constantly sitting in the top 4 of our league.
Our semi-final was a game of two halves – the first half saw a composed ABC side dominate Takapuna in all areas of the pitch, thrashing the keeper, but regrettably with no goals being scored. By the second quarter our unconventional PC plan paid off and we scored a much-needed goal to take the lead. But going into half time only a goal ahead was not enough! Takapuna came out strong, and soon won a PC. They made the mistake of pushing it to a player and then taking a raised shot – their goal was disallowed and ABC was still ahead! We fought tooth and nail to hang on! With a few close opportunities including a cracking reverse shot saved by their keeper. And although we tried hard, we just couldn’t get a stronger lead, but luckily it wasn’t needed. Final score was 1 nil, and P3 through to the finals.
This was a strange twist of fate from the previous season where we lost to Takapuna in the semi’s also with a disallowed goal (for ABC). So this season it's our turn to play for Championship glory!
This squad have played some great hockey this year and the girls deserve the win this Saturday. Come along to support us as we play ECB Black in the Premier 3 Grand Final at 2:00pm on Harbour 2. Guaranteed to be a fiery game!
Division 1 Women
The Division 1 Women’s side this season is not a side to be messed with! With new coaching staff and a few new players in the mix this team has gone the entire season undefeated.
So it's no surprise they have made the Grand Final for Division 1 with a mix of seasoned players and fresh faces to club hockey, these girls have done so well to deal with the turbulent season, committing to training and trying new things, all with an open mind. And in their last few games they have reached 'perfection' with their shape, back and arounds and tackling.
For some reason they love to be a goal down and then bounce back! Their semi-final was a closely fought game with the girls playing their best game as a team and as individuals yet!.
A disallowed goal for NSU got the Ewes fired up and the Bees came out 'buzzing'! They couldn’t quite get a goal in, though not from lack of trying. The fourth quarter saw the girls putting the pressure on in the attacking circle, but with no success finishing the game in a draw, nil all. Luckily their coach had prepared them for shootouts and had full faith in their ability to score and defend. That faith was justified as they won the shootouts 2-1! Through to the Grand Final as an undefeated team.
Throughout the season this squad has always had a large crowd of supporters representing the ABC spirit. Hopefully this will continue for their final on Saturday at 12.10 against Takapuna on Harbour 5.
Other
Most of our other teams reached their respective Grand Final semi finals with some losing by a whisker. Three other teams are playing this weekend in Bowl finals, with the newly formed Division 3 Women and Division 2 Maroon Men's teams making finals day in their first season, with Maroon playing off in a local derby with Yellow!
Game times
Division 3 Women v Midway Harbour 5 9.00am
Division 1 Women v Takapuna Black Harbour 5 12.10pm
Division 2 Men Yellow v Maroon Harbour 5 1.45pm
Premier 3 Women v ECB Black, Harbour 2 2.00pm
Prem Women v HDF Time and venue to be confirmed
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