GHB/ Diamond Mineral Water Indoor Hockey Festival 2016
The Toronto Lions fired warning shots to all opponents with their comfortable win over local top side Old Fort as the Diamond Mineral Water Indoor Hockey Festival continued on Friday evening at the National gymnasium on Mandela Avenue. The Toronto side put together strings of passes in a disciplined approach to picking apart their opposition and were devastating when the eventual scoring opportunities appeared.
Tony Cole was his usual outstanding self in goal for the Fort and kept the game scoreless at the half, but the Lions would make their breakthrough in the opening minute of the second half through a Jonathan Roberts deflection goal. After being foiled by Cole on several occasions, the Lions seemed to opt for hard passes across the goal for deflections to achieve success. This tactic worked as Shane Rajaraman scored two goals similar to Roberts and a third field goal to give Lions a 4-0 lead by the 36th minute. Satnam Dosanjh put the exclamation mark on the performance with a final minute goal to take his team’s tally to 5. Old Fort created their own opportunities in the match but Shankar in goal matched each opportunity to earn the shutout.
Hikers Krezia Layne being challenged by Leigh Sandison
Following their impressive performance on Thursday evening, the Queens Park men destroyed their opposition on Friday. Queen’s Park opened the day’s matches with an 11-2 drubbing of the Bal-Wash-ers as Trinidadian nationals Akim Toussant and Jordan Vieira proved too much for the Washers hammering home four and three goals respectively. Darren Cowie scored a double with Dominic Young and Jerazeno Bell completing the Queen’s Park scorers. Rishi Bhagava and Jesse Larson each managed singles for the Bal-Wash-ers.
The Toronto Lions only needed three minutes to get on the scoresheet against Carib HC as match top-scorer Jonathan Roberts pierced the air with a penalty corner strike that was too fast for the Carib goalkeeper. Roberts would score four more for the match en route to a convincing 10-1 victory for the Lions. Shane Rajaran with two goals while brothers Micah and Devohn Texeira along with Satnam Dosanjh scores one each to complete the Lions scoring. Jael St. Louis was the lone marksman for Carib.
The Bal-Wash-ers returned later in the evening to chalk up their first win of the division against the Avengers with a 4-1 final score. The goals for the winners were shared among Dean Schiller, Rishi Bhargava, Yannick van Bavel and Jugwinder Mahal while Meshach Sargeant scored for the Avengers.
In the ladies fixtures, the Toronto Toros managed their second win of the competition. After a bit of a slow start, the Toros seized control of the match and were up 3-0 by the 32nd minute as Kaelen Watson scored a double and Danica Jayme added a single. The match then took a strange turn as the Hikers clawed themselves back into contention with a pair of goals from Nicole Eastman and Krizia Layne. The boisterous Hikers supporters seemed to provide just the catalyst needed for the Hikers to craft their comeback but Jayme carved a chunk out of their enthusiasm with a 37th minute field goal to take the score to 4-2. Alana Lewis managed a final goal for Hikers very last minute of the match but with all spectators on edge, the final horn would see the score remaining at 4-3 in favour of the Canadians.
Striker Sonia Jardine of Pizza Hut GCC took 15 minutes to get on the scoresheet but then rattled off three more goals for the 4-0 win over Old Fort. Jardine would be the lone scorer of the match and showed her class as she produced a goal each time she was on the court for the second half of the game.
In Pool A of the veterans competition, Old Old Fort made a strong bid for a place in the final with a 5-3 victory over Malvern HC of Trinidad. After a 1-1 halftime score, Old Old Fort fell behind in the 29th minute by 2-3 before storming back with three unanswered goals for the win.
Veterans pool B saw Antonio’s Hickers edge Carib HC by 3-2 while the Queens Park vets managed a 6-2 victory over Bal-wash-ers and a 7-3 win against Carib HC.
