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Phoenix Orange have emerged victors for the sixth consecutive year against their old Eastern Southland foes in Hockey Southland’s division one men’s final.
The final played in Gore on Saturday was drawn six-all at the final whistle and Phoenix won the penalty goal shootout against Eastern United Green to take the title.
Phoenix player coach Andrew Wilson said the players were very pleased with their efforts.
“It was a really good final.
“It had a lot of drama and a lot of goals, which as a defender, not what I like to see, but no, it was good.”
The game plan was to start well.
“We knew if we came out hot firing, then we had a really good opportunity of putting them under some scoreboard pressure.
“We probably had the ascendancy on them in that first quarter, definitely.”
He also told the players the game would be won in the last quarter.
“Our focus was making sure that we had enough there for that fourth quarter push.”
They knew Eastern were “never going to give up”.
At the end of the third quarter Phoenix were up 5-2 and looked to be comfortably ahead.
As the fourth quarter started Eastern took their goalkeeper out of the goal to give themselves an extra team member in the field.
This changed the dynamics of the game and suddenly the three goal lead was not enough.
“We had opportunities there to ice the game and normally if you score six goals in a game, you’d say you’ve done pretty well to win the game.”
However, the extra player running around put pressure on the Phoenix players.
“We were finding it hard to adjust to that.”
Eastern closed the gap to be 5-6 down and then in the dying seconds of the game a penalty corner goal gave Eastern the draw.
Wilson said going into the shootouts he knew the team still had a “good chance” of winning.
“Four of the last six finals have gone to shootouts and we’ve won every one that we’ve had against them.”
Brayden Thomas was “phenomenal” in the goal.
“He won it for us.”
There were times in the third quarter that Thomas made repeated saves of shots on goal.
He was also very composed during the shootout.
Another highlight of the game was the goal shooting of Cameron Knight who scored all the team’s goals.
Three of those goals scored from a penalty corner drag flick ended up in the same place at the back of the goal.
“Fair credit to him, it’s quite hard to do that. “
The team had seen glimpses of what the 17-year-old was capable of during the season but he saved his best until last, Wilson said.
“He definitely stepped up big time in the final.”
The team had lost six experienced players at the end of last season and were also without some of their regular players in the final.
“This is probably our most inexperienced team that we’ve had on paper for years.”
Eastern had led the competition throughout the season.
“They should be proud of how they played as well.”