Our Under-17 girls hockey team have their sights set on Singapore and the inaugural Youth Olympics later this year.
This was their reward for beating Namibia 5-0 in the final of the Africa qualifying tournament in East London at the weekend.
But the South African boys weren’t as lucky, going down 3-2 on penalties to Ghana.
The in-form Jacinta Jubb opened the scoring in the girls’ final and Stephanie Baxter added a second to take the locals into the half-time break 2-0 up.
The South Africans added a further three goals in the second half and captain Jenna-Leigh du Preez fittingly added the final goal. There was more joy for the South Africans with Bronwynne Kretzmann being named player of the tournament.
The boys’ final saw the final score ending at 2-2 and despite the 20 minutes of extra time there was nothing to separate the sides.
Ghana had earlier taken a 2-0 lead through Johnny Botsio and captain Alfred Ntiamoah but the in-form Grant Glutz scored twice to force the penalty shoot-out.
Ghana supplied the Player of the Tournament in the form of Botsio.
Botsio and Glutz were joint tournament scorers while East London’s Tiffany Jones reigned supreme among the girls.
Article Source: http://www.sascoc.co.za/
