Hockey

Windhoek High School’s girls first hockey team made history by finishing amongst the top four teams at the St Mary’s Hockey Festival that took place in Johannesburg from April 11 to 14.

Competing against the top 28 girls hockey schools in South Africa, WHS played 10 matches before losing in the semifinals to finish fourth overall for their best ever result at the tournament.

The relatively young team astounded the more well known hockey schools by winning a crucial game in the play-offs against last year’s champions St Andrews to ensure a spot in the semi finals.

The Windhoek Showgrounds was a hive of activity this weekend as about 180 of Namibia’s top junior hockey players competed in a Pro Series Indoor (PSI) Hockey Development Tournament, which was sponsored by Square Cafe and Ricoh.

The tournament, which was organised by Trevor and Shayne Cormack of Namibia Sport Dynamics, was essentially for Under 10 players, but also saw Namibia’s best Under 13, U15, and Under 18 players in action, ahead of their South African PSI tour in December.

Namibia narrowly missed out on a place at next year’s Women’s Under 21 Hockey World Cup when they finished third behind South Africa and Ghana at the African qualifying competition in Johannesburg last week.

Only the top two teams qualified for the World Cup and Namibia narrowly lost out to Ghana when they lost 1-0 in their encounter on October 13.

The teams weighed up evenly in that match and it seemed as if the match was heading for a goalless draw before Ghana scored the winning goal in the final minutes of the game.

The Namibia Hockey Union (NHU) this week announced the Namibian Under 21 Ladies Team which will be traveling to South Africa to compete in the Junior Africa Cup.

This tournament, which will take place in Johannesburg from 13 to 20 October, will serve as a qualifier for the 10th Junior World Cup which will be held next year, and the top two teams will go through to represent Africa.

At a function attended by the Namibia Sports Commission, members of the NHU executive committee, players, parents, coaches and management, the team was introduced and the national kit handed over.

The Namibian Hawks dominated an international Pro Series Indoor (PSI) Hockey tournament in Walvis Bay over the weekend, winning all six the categories that were contested.

The Namibian Eagles and the Namibian Hawks competed against the visiting Gauteng Griffons side from South Africa in Under 13, Under 15 and Under 18 categories for boys and girls.

Windhoek High School and St Paul’s College were the big winners at the Momentum National Schools Hockey Challenge which took place at the Doc Jubber Fields in Olympia over the weekend.

WHS won the U18 girls and the U16 girls titles, while St Paul’s won the U14 boys and U14 girls titles.

There were also good performances by Oranjemund Private School who won the Boys U18 category, and Windhoek Afrikaanse Privaat Skool (WAP) who won the Boys U16 category.

The Namibia Hockey Union held a prize giving ceremony on Tuesday to reward the top schools and individual players who excelled during its Mini Hockey Development League which was recently completed.

An added bonus was the presence of South Africa’s star female player Pietie Coetzee and team mate Roxy Turner who handed over the prizes and conducted several coaching clinics for individuals and schools over the past few days.

Windhoek Old Boys won both the men and women’s Premier League titles of the Field Hockey Leaue that came to an end last weekend.

The WOBSC men´s team won their last match of the season 4-1 against DTS on Saturday at the Doc Jubber Fields in Olympia.

Trevor Cormack gave WOB a 2-0 lead by scoring a brace in the first half.

After the break, Wian Schickerling pulled one back for DTS, but a third goal by Cormack and another one by Lev Whittaker gave the log leaders a comfortable victory.

The field hockey leagues come to an end this weekend with the final round of games being played tomorrow at the Doc Jubber Fields in Olympia.

In the women’s Premier League, Windhoek Old Boys and DTS will square off at 13h00 in the last remaining match of the season. In their first round clash WOBSC cruised to a 6-0 victory.

WOBSC have won the championship title already, while DTS will finish third even if they manage to beat the log leader this time around.

Spain were the big winners at the Mini World Cup hockey tournament that took place for the 11th successive year at the Doc Jubber fields in Windhoek over the weekend.

Spain won five of the eight age groups that were contested to finish as the overall winners, while England came second overall and Australia third overall.

The Ambassadorial Trophy that included aspects like the best song or dance, the best spirit, mascot, decorations and cultural presentations of the countries, was won by Holland, with Spain coming second and England third.