Collegiate show some real fight

For the third consecutive year, the Collegiate Girls’ U16A hockey team took part in the Investec Bloemhof tournament last week, hosted in Stellenbosch.

This time, however, the school also sent its B team to compete in the event.

The A team started off with comfortable first-day victories over Roedean (3-0), Helpmekaar (4-0), La Rochelle (4-0) and Rhenish (1-0).

The players distributed the ball nicely and had it not been for some excellent keeping from opposition teams, the scores could have been higher.

Day two started with a tough game against Springfield, but Collegiate remained patient and scored the winner near the end.

Affies did not hold out much resistance in the next game as Collegiate won 6-0.

Paarl Gym were the other leading team in the pool and in their head-to-head clash, the Western Cape side took the lead midway through the game.

Collegiate soaked up a lot of pressure and finally got a breakaway, allowing captain Amy Breetzke to find an unmarked Kate Comley in the centre of the box for the equaliser.

The game finished 1-1, which put Collegiate into the semifinals against Garsfontein.

The match ended 0-0 and both sides had to endure sudden-death strokes.

Lily Sharp held her nerve and buried her flick in the bottom corner before goalkeeper Rebecca Fincham pulled off a fine save to seal the victory for Collegiate.

Unfortunately, a bug found its way through the Bloemhof hostel on the eve of the final and more than half of the Collegiate team were severely affected.

The girls gave it their best shot but were just not strong enough to keep out the powerful Paarl Gym team who ended as deserved winners, 1-0.

The B team’s performances in the pool stages were somewhat of a roller-coaster ride as they performed well in some games and poorly in others.

After good wins over Paarl Girls’ B (4-2), Rhenish B (1-0) and DF Malan (1-0), they secured a semifinal spot following a 1-1 draw with Bloemhof.

Semifinal opponents Paarl Gym B had dominated their pool games and it was always going to be a tough game.

Unfortunately, a bug found its way through the Bloemhof hostel on the eve of the final and more than half of the team were severely affected

Collegiate came out guns blazing. They created chances and defended like their lives depended on it before Paarl got the winner with barely two minutes left on the clock.

Paarl went on to win the B section as Collegiate stumbled in their third-place playoff against Bloemhof, losing on strokes.