General News
25 May, 2023
Hockey club well represented
THE Corangamite Hockey Club was well represented by current and past players at the junior country championships held across Melbourne last weekend.
THE Corangamite Hockey Club was well represented by current and past players at the junior country championships held across Melbourne last weekend.
Those to head to Melbourne to compete included Poppy Jenkins (a member of the Ballarat girls under 18 team); Taj Cunningham (Ballarat Boys under 18); Ava Cunningham, Bella Jenkins, Felicity
Wood and Elise Wood (Ballarat girls under 15); Oliver Clark and Harry Jenkins (Ballarat boys under 15 – finished third); Maisie Cunningham, Jess Mahony, Akeisha Bishop and Harmony Bishop (Hockey South West - finished equal third).
Also competing were Noah Boyd, Quinn Clark, Lawson Clark, Johann Iles, Tobias Iles, and Dietrich Iles.
Taj Cunningham played in the under 18 hockey Ballarat team who won gold at the statejunior country championships.
Taj’s team won four games and drew one to reach the final against Hockey Central.
It was an incredibly exciting and memorable final – the scores were one-all after normal time and three-all after round one of five shootouts.
The result came down to sudden death shootouts, with their goalie making the save to win the game.
All boys played at the top of their game all weekend, through sometimes trying weather and proudly none of them received a card while their opposition in the final received two yellow cards.
The Corangamite Hockey Club is proud of its young members who played in the under 13 girls and boys teams, representing Hockey South West.
The girls finished second in Pool B and couldn't be separated from Hockey Central Vic which was described by Hockey South West president Paul Dillon as “a pulsating semi-final that, despite drama and end-to-end action from both teams as the game opened up, ended 0-0”.
As a result, the girls team tied for third.
It was great to see the Corangamite girls taking on the goalie role, with Akeisha Bishop starting off the tournament in goals before Jess Mahony showed incredible bravery to suit up as a goalie for the first time.
The Ballarat under 15 girls finished equal first in their pool which meant a stressful start to Sunday morning having to line up for a shoot-out against Geelong.
Felicity Wood and Ava Cunningham were chosen as two of the five girls to have a shot one on one against the opposition goalie.
Unfortunately neither of them managed to slot a goal and the result was 2-1 which meant Geelong finished first with an easier path to the grand final.
The girls then came up against an impressive, skilful team from Goulburn Valley going down 4-1.
They didn’t manage to hold on for third in a closely contested final match against Glenelg.
With three goals for the tournament Maisie Cunningham was the leading goal scorer for Hockey South West and Akeisha Bishop also managed to slot a goal when she swapped from goalie to field player.
Corangamite’s under 13 boys joined a team described by Paul Dillon as “a very young boys squad which was the first boys team to represent Hockey South West since the pandemic”.
“Despite clear improvement across all five games, and smaller margins with each game, they were unable to register a win this year,” Dillon said.
Quinn Clark shared the job of goalie and certainly got a work out, defending shots like never before.
It was a great learning experience for all children to play against the best regional hockey players across the state.
Win, draw or lose the children all improved and the manner in which they competed with respect and good manners certainly made Corangamite committee members very proud.
