Otago had their chances but could not find a way to score to make it two straight wins at the National Hockey Championship in Christchurch.
The Otago men slipped to a 1-0 loss to Northland yesterday to go with their bright 4-2 win over Wellington on the opening day.
A 1-0 scoreline tends to suggest a game of few chances. Both sides, however, created plenty of opportunities, and it was only some excellent goalkeeping and some wayward shooting that kept the score so low.
Otago, in particular, might have been confident of finding the net in the first quarter.
They had no fewer than five penalty corners — to Northland’s zero — in the opening spell but could not find the breakthrough.
Instead, the Northlanders grabbed the only goal of the game from basically nothing.
They played the ball out to the far left before a raking pass was sent across the front of goal. Otago could not control it safely, and when the ball popped loose, Luka Clark found himself completely open, and he promptly fired into the goal.
The Northlanders had a bunch of penalty corners of their own in the middle stages of the game but found Otago goalkeeper Felix McIntosh up to the task.
Otago came home strongly and had another couple of looks on goal but to no avail.
Their final pool game is against North Harbour today.
Harbour have drawn both their opening two NHC games but won both subsequent shootouts.
The Central Otago men started their tier three campaign with a 2-2 draw with the Canterbury Cobras. Will Anderson and Nicholas Browett scored goals for Central Otago, before the Cobras won the shootout 4-3.
Yesterday, Sam Fitzgerald scored Central’s goal in a 2-1 loss to Southland.
On the women’s side, Central Otago had a 4-0 loss to Tasman on the opening day before rebounding with a 3-1 win over South Canterbury yesterday.
Fairven Williams scored two goals for the Central women and player-coach Kirsty Cole nabbed the third.
The Otago women’s team lost to North Harbour 2-0.
The Otago side will play Wellington today.
All men’s and women’s teams then head into playoffs.
