Indoor Club Championships U16 wrap up

The U16 Indoor Club Championships were held over the weekend, with a significant number of team entries, seeing both MSC Parkville and Monash University being used over Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

There were a total of 51 matches played across the three days and we saw a whopping 131 goals scored in the Girls competition, with Camberwell’s Bailey Wallace leading the way with 9 goals. 247 goals were scored in the Boys competition, with top goal scorer going to Essendon’s Lachlan Micallef with 15 goals.

Girls Competition

In the Girls competition, it was Camberwell and Powerhouse who finished 1^st in their respective pools in the round robin, followed by MCC and Doncaster who finished 2^nd, and would all progress into Pool C to determine the Gold Medal and 3^rd place match ups. Powerhouse would beat both MCC and Camberwell in Pool C, securing their spot in the Gold Medal match; whilst the remaining 3 teams ended on 2 points in Pool C, but it would be Doncaster with the better goal differential seeing them move on to meet Powerhouse in the Grand Final.

In the Grand Final match between Powerhouse and Doncaster, it was Powerhouse who got out to the better start, with 3 goals in the first half from Georgia Taylor, Ella Croxall and Morgan Hughes. Doncaster’s defence in the second half then heavily tightened up, with Doncaster goal keeper Shauna Sidhu making a number of outstanding saves to give her team a fighting chance. However, in the end the offensive prowess of Powerhouse would prove too much, as they scored 4 en route to a 4-0 win and the Gold.

The 3^rd place play-off between Camberwell and MCC would be a heated battle, but Camberwell would prevail 5-0 with Bailey Wallace scoring 2 goals, accompanied by single goal scorers Jade Henderson, Chloe Dunlop and Odile Roberts.

Waverley, Southern United, Yarra Valley and Footscray would end the bottom 4 teams after the original pool matches and meet in Pool D to determine 5^th through 8^th. Waverley would finish a top of the Pool, winning all three matches, behind leading goal scorer Zizi Pozzebon (6 goals), putting them in 5^th place. Then Southern United would finish in 6^th, after beating both Yarra and Footscray; and finally Yarra would edge out Footscray for 7^th on goal difference after their draw 2-2 in their final match; while Footscray would wrap up the weekend in 8^th.

Boys Competition

In the Boys Competition, it would be Footscray (1^st Pool A) against Altona (2^nd Pool B) in Semi-Final 1 & Doncaster (1^st Pool B) playing Yarra Valley (2^nd Pool A) in Semi-Final 2. Semi-Final 1 was a back-and-forth contest, with Footscray taking a 2-1 lead late in the second half with Angus Le’s 2^nd goal of the match 2-1, but then Altona’s Domenic Bozzone quickly struck back to make it 2-2 and give them hope of advancing to the Grand Final. The match would end a 2-2 draw, meaning that Footscray, as the higher seed, would move on. Semi-Final 2 was a high scoring affair, with a combined 7 goals in the first half, and Doncaster leading 4-3 at the half-time buzzer. But unfortunately for Yarra Valley, they would remain scoreless as Doncaster would score 3 more, giving them the 7-3 win and a spot in the Grand Final. Multiple goal scorers Tom Trenery and Joel Taylor from Donnie and Zachariah Preston-Loh from Yarra serving up the highlights in this one.

The boys competition saved the best for last, with an absolute thriller of a match between the top seeds in the comp Footscray and Doncaster. Footscray got out to a 2-1 heading into half-time, but 2 minutes into the second half this lead was erased by Joel Taylor. Doncaster then capitalised on a Footscray card, with Joel Taylor scoring his third goal for the match in the 30^th minute, putting Donnie up 3-2 with 6’ to go it was theirs to lose. Ashton Scram had other thoughts, as he put away his fourth goal of the tournament for Footscray, bringing it back to 3-3. However, it would be Doncaster’s Tom Trenery who was the hero in this one, scoring a last-minute goal to break the tie and give Doncaster the Gold Medal.

It was another exciting match in the 3^rd place play-off, with Yarra looking poised for the upset, up 2-1 with under 7 minutes to go; but Altona’s Fletcher Guy scored 2 goals in the space of 2 minutes to give him a hattrick for the match and propel Altona in the lead, where they would remain until the final buzzer.

In the 5^th place play-off, Waverley got off to a scorching hot start against PEGS, scoring four goals to none in the first half, and this momentum was carried into the start of the second with two more goals coming within 7 minutes. This 6-0 lead proved too large for the PEGS comeback, but PEGS captain Charlie Gunn wouldn’t go down without a fight scoring in the 33^rd minute to make it a 6-1 final score for Waverley.

The 7^th place play-off was raining goals, with both Camberwell and Essendon scoring 3-a-piece in the first half. But Essendon proved to be the ones to continue that trend, scoring 4 unanswered goals, with leading goal scorer and Captain Lachlan Micallef having a hattrick in the contest. The match would conclude 4-7 with Essendon claiming 7^th.

Finally, Mentone had a dominant showing against TEM in their classification match, with Mentone scoring 7 goals and holding their opponents scoreless, to give them the 9^th place finish.

A huge thank you to all of the club administrators, team managers, coaches, players and supporters that were involved in the event!

Thank you to Stuart Westmore for his time this weekend taking photos of the event! Go visit @hockeyvictoriaofficial and @skwhockeypics on Instagram to see our players in action!

View the full photo album here.

The final standings were as follows:

To check out all of the results from the weekend, please use the following links:

Boy’s Competition - https://hockeyvictoria.altiusrt.com/competitions/119

Girl’s Competition - https://hockeyvictoria.altiusrt.com/competitions/118

A huge thank you to our dedicated officials for their tireless work across the weekend. The Event truly would not have been possible without you all. A special mention to the following for their appointments:

The action continues this weekend (Feb 24 - 26) with the Under 14 Boys & Girls Event! Be sure to keep an eye on the HV website and social channels for updates.