City makes it three from three
CITY Highlanders scored a ‘‘threepeat’’ on Saturday, beating Momona to win its third consecutive Otago Hockey Association premier women’s competition.
City completed a rare perfect competition, having won all its matches this season.
The match started slowly but City, using its short passing game and speed up front, was able to make more of its early touches, forcing Momona keeper Jaysha Tippins to make some quality saves in the first 10 minutes.
While the possession and territory were even through the first part of the match, City appeared to be lifting the pace and was able to win a few penalty corners but was not able to convert these chances. Momona has some of the more talented strikers in the competition but when they had the ball they could not find the target, spraying the ball wide a few times late in the first half.
City was very briefly awarded a goal just before the break but all on the field knew it had hit the outside of the netting so the goal was quickly overturned.
As we all know, finals can be tight affairs and often come down to who can take their chances when presented. Unfortunately Momona’s young side wasn’t able to make the most of the few chances early in the second period and soon after City stormed down the field and won a penalty corner.
If one had been asked before the match to predict how a goal would come the most common response would probably have been a City penalty corner followed by a Tegan Buchanan goal and this happened — a clean, straight shot went direct to Buchanan, and the competition’s top goalscorer this season broke the deadlock.
City was able to lift the pace once more as it has so often done this season after scoring, but despite the further dominance through the mid part of the half, the red and blacks held on and managed to keep themselves in the game.
Several more chances were created by both sides but it was clear the pressure was beginning to tell as some of the players began to make more mistakes.
In the end Momona could not find a breakthrough of its own and when the final whistle blew, City had completed its hattrick.
University White Huskies beat Taieri Tigers to take third place, while Kings United and University Black Stringrays were 5th and 6th respectively. In the Division two final, WestTaieri A defended its title over Momona B, and in Division 3 Momona finally got a win, as its C women’s overcame KetobEvergeens.