With the final four in contention for the championship in the Guyana Hockey Board/Lucozade Indoor Hockey League at the National Gymnasium on Thursday, Oliver Rahim held off Bounty in a heated penalty shoot-out in the battle of the Georgetown Cricket Clubs teams; Vintage and Bounty, while in the female qualifier Marzana Fiedtkou sent Spartans into the Semis.
In the lone men’s game, a straight Knockout, the first half was all about excellent goal keeping skills from both the Bounty and Vintage goal keepers. However, with just three minutes remaining of the first half, Kevin Spencer worked his way past Rahim Oliver to a pair of goals in quick succession, ending the half with Bounty leading 2-0.
Rahim Oliver
In the first minute of the second half, Eric Hing responded to put Vintage in contention. Hing’s accuracy was followed by that of Patrick Edgill two minutes later as the Vintage boys leveled the score early in the second half.
Hing once again returned to blast past goalkeeper, Medroy Scotland for the second time which sent Vintage in a 2-3 lead.
However, Bounty was not going to fold that easily with Kareem McKenzie scoring with just three minutes remaining in the match.
Spencer scored once more to send Bounty in the lead 4-3 but with less than a minute on the clock while Vintage leveled the field to send the see-saw battle into the penalty.
In the shootout, Oliver was the first to stop a tough shot by the Bounty boys. And after a mix up between the umpires it was awarded a save. On the other side, Vintage found an easy pass through Scotland to have Vintage lead 4-5.
Rahim once more defended like a pro and saved a second while Eric Hing netted his third and send Vintage through to the next round.
In the female contest, a resumption from Tuesday where only the first half was played before an unusual power outage ended the game prematurely with Spartans 2-nil up against Old Fort. Marzana Fiedtkou, picking up from where she left off, scored seconds into the second half thanks to a powerful assist from Dominique de Groot.
The Old Fort women were using the corners nicely as Dian Garnett put them on the scoreboard only to have Fiedtkou score the fourth goal and put Spartans in the semi-finals where they will meet Hikers with the winning team advancing to play GCC Pizza Hut in the finals on Saturday.
The semi-finals in both categories will be played this evening also at the National Gymnasium from 19:00H while the finals will be played on Saturday at the same venue also from 19:00H.
