McCARTHY Catholic College’s three sides remain in the finals hunt at the NSW Catholic Colleges Hockey Championships in Grafton but have some tough games ahead of them today.
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The open girls are through to the Division B semi-finals after a 1-nil win over St Joseph’s Gosford, a 0-all draw with St Francis Xavier’s Hamilton and a 2-nil loss to O’Connor, Armidale.
The 16s girls are second after the first day after two wins and a loss but have two hard games to come today, coach Geoff Denton said.
And they will probably need to win both to make sure they qualify for the final.
They started their campaign with a 2-1 win over McAuley Grafton with Libbi Maher and Claire Annis-Brown finding the back of the net.
“The first game we started really well and led 2-nil,” Denton said.
“But we seemed to run out of legs towards the end.”
Fortunately they managed to hold on.
They then went down to St Mary Star of the Sea College Wollongong 3-1 before downing Trinity Goulburn 7-nil.
Annis-Brown and Ash Horniman both struck twice in a game where they “played terrificly for the first 10 minutes” but then dropped off.
Earlier against SMC, after levelling at 1-all, McCarthy conceded two goals early in the second half.
“The last 15 minutes we were all over them,” Denton said.
But they just couldn’t find the back of the net.
“We probably hit the keeper’s pad six times,” he said.
“We just weren’t smart enough in the circle.”
The Isaac Farmilo-coached 16s boys’ hopes are a bit slimmer.
They need to not only beat St Pius X High School in their final game at 8am this morning but hope other results go their way.
Yesterday, after a 4-3 win over St Clare’s High School Taree, they lost 4-2 to Murwillumbah’s Mount St Patrick College.
They had to play for virtually the last 10 minutes one down after Ehren Hazel received two yellow cards.
That also meant they were without him for the next game against McAuley, which was also on grass and they lost 6-nil.
They bounced back with a 6-nil win over MacKillop College St Paul’s High School before a second half come-back saw them triumph 4-3 over Red Bend, Forbes.
Hazel scored the match-winner with a second on the clock.
It was his second for the game, with Harper Galvin also bagging a double.
“We played atrociously in the first half,” Farmilo said.
“We had more chances than them but we didn’t take them.
“We took our chances better in the second half.”
