Felixton College
In their second appearance, Felixton College improved considerably on their first results at the Grand Finals of the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Hockey Challenge.
Felixton met top teams Durban Girls’ College (DBN Central Regional Winners) and St Anne’s College (PMB North Regional Winners), together with Crawford La Lucia (DBN North Regional Winners) and Amanzimtoti High School (DBN South Regional Winners) in their pool games on Saturday. Starting off with a fantastic scoreline in a well fought game where they went 1 nil down against one times tournament winner’s St Anne’s from Hilton. In their second game they took on Amanzimtoti where they went 1 nil up where Cate Oxley netted her team’s first goal. Meeting Crawford La Lucia, Felixton let two goals slip past them ahead of yet another fantastic result in their last pool game, where they only let one goal go in against three times tournament winners, Durban Girls’ College.
On Sunday, in the cross pool playoff they took on third in Pool A, Kokstad College. After full time the score was level with no goals finding the back of the box. In the only penalty shootout of the tournament, Felixton took the first round, 1 nil. In the second round both Kokstad and Felixton netted their shots so the score was 2-1 to Felixton. Kokstad levelled the score in the third round and sadly Felixton were not able to build on their advantage and missed their third penalty meaning the scoreline was level on 2 each after three attempts.
The game’s result moved to a sudden death scenario with Felixton taking the first run and charging into the D, moving the ball left trying to round the keeper and rolling the ball agonisingly over the baseline. Kokstad took to the spot and calmly scored their team’s third and winning goal.
Coach for Felixton College, Marilise Kietzmann shared after the tournament, “I feel that overall we played really good hockey. We were in a tough pool and being a small school I believe that we definitely held our own.”
“We fought hard and were unlucky to lose our playoff game in a penalty shootout. The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the tournament is a wonderful opportunity to be able to play against schools that we don’t have regular fixtures against. We look forward to hopefully being back next year.”
Felixton met Ferrum High School, winners of the Northern KZN Regional in the seventh position playoff where Josie Picton earned her team seventh place, two places higher than their first Grand Finals appearance of ninth last year.
Felixton College – North Coastal Regional Winner – Seventh (2019), Ninth (2018)