Central and Northern share honours in thrilling hockey finals
FAVOURITES Central Zone li ed the men’s hockey title a er edging Northern Zone 4-2 in yesterday’s finals at the Bukit Lima Indoor Stadium.
Joeton George opened scoring in the fourth minute before teammate Ted Ranieri Tugang found the net again in the sixth minute to give Central Zone a 2-0 lead at half-time.
Unperturbed, Northern Zone came back strongly in the second half.
Against the run of play, Northern Zone’s Augustine Gatlin struck twice in the 13th and 15th minute to level the score 2-2.
With the match wide open, there was a frantic search for goals from both sides, turning the game ugly when a northern player was injured.
That could have demoralised the northerners and Central Zone capitalised on that advantage to score two late goals through Joeton in the 20th minute and Addit Abdullah in the 21st minute.
In another exciting encounter, Northern Zone took the women’s title a er beating Southern Zone 2-1. Both teams played cautiously initially, ending the first half scoreless.
Northern Zone’s Nur Aziera Zaidil then broke the deadlock in the 15th minute when she dribbled in from the le corner.
However, southerner Joen Junatan retaliated immediately to even the score.
In the 20th minute Shifaa Dhiya Ujang scored what proved to be the deciding goal for the title.
Third place for the men’s and women’s teams went to Southern Zone and Central Zone respectively.
Central Zone team manager Jutim Joem expressed satisfaction with the team’s performance.
“We hit our target of one gold from the men’s team and we achieved that. We are also happy with the performance of the boys who played quite an impressive game and were able to control the game well and played according to books,” he said.
Kuching Resident Norlela Shariff presented the prizes.