Durban South Regional
3 Schools Trust: Sunday 25 March
Eight schools will be converging on the 3 Schools Trust astroturf to participate in the Durban South Regional of the SPAR KZN School Girls’ Hockey Challenge on Sunday 25 March.
Host school is one time winners, Kuswag Hoërskool. Kuswag took the honours in the inaugural tournament in 2011 and are eager to topple defending champions, Amanzimtoti High School. In their first outing to the Grand Finals, Kuswag finished ninth overall in the KZN SPAR tournament.
Toti have represented this region in the last three consecutive years, advancing through to the Grand Finals where they finished tenth overall in all three appearances. This year, the defending champs start an exciting new chapter and will be taking to the pitch under the guidance of new coach, Cris Clarke.
In last year’s regionals, it was anyone’s trophy with an epic Amanzimtoti three-way duel developing between Amanzimtoti, Kingsway and Kuswag, with Toti knocking one goal against Kuswag to claim 2017 victory. In the build up to this year’s tournament, Kingsway and Kuswag have stretched their legs at the Scottburgh Festival held two weekends ago. Kuswag drew in all three of their games, and Kingsway faired marginally better with two nil nil draws and one victory against Scottburgh.
Taking to the field for this regional; Pool A consists of host, Kuswag; together with Amanzimtoti; Grosvenor and Rossburgh. In Pool B are Werda; Kingsway; Queensburgh and New Forest. The games are 23 minutes long with a one minute change over at half time. Once the pool games are concluded, the tournament advances to a cross pool play off with the two semi-finals taking place. Once the semis are done and dusted the third and fourth positions will be played for with the main game taking place mid-afternoon.
The Durban South Regional is certainly one of the most festive tournaments in the KZN area with all teams showing off not only their hockey skills but dance skills too, taking to the pitch for a dance-off in flash mob style in previous years.
Encouraging everyone to bring their A game to the regional, on the day, the tournament also awards the Most Promising Umpire. Scouts for Varsity College also travel around to all ten regionals tournaments and at the Grand Finals award hockey bursaries. Last year, the Durban South player Phiwo Myeza, 2017 Captain for Amanzimtoti High School was one of the lucky recipients of this bursary.
The winner of the Durban South Regional will be the fifth team to secure their spot at the Grand Finals taking place at St Mary’s DSG in Kloof at the end of July. Teams that have already secured their place are Ferrum Hoërskool from the Northern KZN Regional, newcomer Epworth School from PMB Central Regional, St Anne’s Diocesan from PMB Northern Regional and the winning team from the Durban Central Regional which takes place this weekend (Saturday 17 March).
For more info visit the tournament’s Facebook page.