Danville Park Girls’ High School’s Aaisha Karodia clears the ball during the semi-final at the Durban North Regional of the Spar KZN Schoolgirls’ Hockey Challenge that took place on Sunday, April 13, at Ashton International College.
Image: Val Adamson
Ashton International College Ballito are back, being crowned the Durban North Regional champions in the Spar KZN Schoolgirls’ Hockey Challenge that they hosted on Sunday, April 13.
In an edge-of-your-seat final, Ashton beat defending champs Our Lady of Fatima 1-0. They dialled up their classy performance in their semi-final against Danville Park Girls’ High, which they won 3-0.
From the get-go, Fatima dominated with an array of well-crafted attacking moves, including nine slick set plays with six short corners and three long corners being awarded. Ashton’s keeper, Isabella Baxter played the game of her budding career, backed by a determined and unpassable backline.
Baxter pulled save after save out of her talented hat, with a miraculous stick save that deflected a near perfect missile that was rocketing into the top right corner of the Ashton goal. The last line of defence put her body on the line, diving left and right and with catlike reflexes, was batting away balls fired in by the persistent Fatima forwards.
Ashton got a few rare opportunities to test Fatima’s defenders, but play got quickly pushed back up field with Jenna Shaw skilfully leading her troops in Ashton’s half.
With two minutes left on the clock, Ashton found some freedom and ran the ball down the left then moved it quickly into the circle. Six seconds later, Erin Howard stepping onto her right foot, overbalancing and toppling over, took a reverse-stick sweep, sending the ball whooshing past Fatima’s keeper, Kayla Driver.
Fatima wasted no time and were back peppering Baxter and her backline, desperately trying to find a hole to equalise but time evaporated.
The victory ended a nine-year wait to reclaim the title that Ashton have won three times previously, in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
Ashton topped their pool, winning all of their games, with Danville finishing second. Both teams netted 10 goals each.
In Pool B, Fatima conquered all of their opponents, finishing on 12 points, and an impressive Reddam House uMhlanga ended their pool games on eight points.
In the first semi-final, Ashton met Reddam and quickly knocked in two goals to advance to the final.
Our Lady of Fatima’s Polly Mashau was awarded Umpire of the Day. No stranger to the tournament, Mashau has officiated at the Grand Finals last year.
Once all the 10 regionals have been played, the top teams will congregate at St Mary’s DSG in Kloof for the Grand Finals on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27.
The sixth team to book their spot so far, Ashton International College are heading to the Grand Finals to meet nine other teams from around KZN. They will be joining St Mary’s DSG (Highway Regional); newcomer Maris Stella (Durban Central Regional); Epworth School (Pietermaritzburg Central Regional); St Anne’s School (Pietermaritzburg North Regional) and the second newcomer, Kingsway High School (Durban South Regional).
