Otago teams fell out of contention at the National Hockey Championship in Christchurch yesterday.
The women were beaten 2-0 by Auckland in the quarterfinal and the men were ousted 7-0 by Canterbury in a quarterfinal later in the day.
The Otago women kept Auckland scoreless for most of the first half.
But late in the second quarter, defender Julia King thumped the ball forward into the circle and Deanna Ritchie deflected it past the right boot of Pippa Croft.
They had an opportunity to score in the third period, but missed the trap from the penalty corner and Auckland cleared.
Most of the play was down the other end, though.
Otago survived a penalty corner and went into the final period trailing 1-0.
Auckland doubled their lead when Maddie Harris slapped in a cross and Ruby Baker steered it into the net.
The Otago men were outclassed by Canterbury.
The home team are the favourites and quickly showed why.
They scored twice in the opening quarter.
Owen Brown tapped in from close range after some nice passing in the circle.
A minute or so later, Nick Finlay speared in a cross which was deflected in by a defender.
And just before the end of the half, Canterbury added a third through Josh Erwin.
Canterbury continued to dominate, banging in a further three goals in the third quarter.
Brown added a seventh for good luck to complete the rout.
In the third-tier men’s competition, Southland lost 2-1 to Taranaki in a quarterfinal.
Central Otago did not progress to the playoffs. They were beaten 5-2 by Tasman in their last round-robin match.
In the women’s third-tier competition, Central Otago slipped to a 3-2 loss to Canterbury. They will play again today in a semifinal.
