The Northwood 1st hockey team were made to work hard for their 3 – 2 victory against a competitive St Charles team on Saturday.
The match was a scrappy affair played in extremely hot and dry conditions on a very slow playing surface.
Northwood opened the scoring when Captain Shane Bradbury went on a sniping run and fired a reverse stick shot past the face of the goal to fellow striker Joshua Cowell who deflected home.
St Charles equalised shortly afterwards after some well worked play.
Joshua Cowell was on the score sheet again after a brilliant drag flick rocketed past the St Charles keepers shoulder from Northwood’s first penalty corner of the half.
Both teams created more scoring chances in the half but it was Northwood that took a 2 – 1 lead into the half time break.
The second half saw St Charles pile on the pressure and Northwood lost their way with some poor discipline resulting in twelve minutes worth of cards.
St Charles saw their pressure rewarded when they scrambled the ball home to bring the scores back to level.
It looked like St Charles were going to get their third but Northwood Keeper Garick Goldman was in brilliant form pulling off some fantastic saves from penalty corners and free play.
Northwood took the lead again with their second penalty corner of the match when Ighsaan Manuel sent a powerful flick into the bottom corner of the goal.
St Charles threw everything into attack and created numerous field scoring chances and penalty corners but they were unable to beat the brilliant Garick Goldman in the Northwood goals.
Northwood held out for a 3 – 2 win in what was a tricky fixture.
Congratulations go to Garick Goldman, Cody van Breemen and Ighsaan Manuel on achieving their 50th cap for the Northwood 1st team. An outstanding achievement for three extremely talented young men.
