Juniors 6
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Tigers 3
A HAT-TRICK to Geremy Sartor has put Juniors’ names into the history books in Griffith hockey, as they sealed a fitting grand final victory against Tigers at West End Oval this week.
While Sartor was the star on the scoreboard he had plenty of help to nullify leading goal scorer for the twilight tournament Paul Milne, with the Tigers’ sharpshooter still managing to score two in a losing side.
Tigers’ Chris Niven was active in the early going while Juniors’ Thomas Harper showed his skills well using the field to his advantage trying to score, only to be stopped by Tigers’ Chris Sutton.
Scott Congdon made a breakaway at the seven minute mark, passing several Juniors’ defenders to score just inside the right post in an excellent individual play.
Juniors hit back straight away when Harper found the back of the net, before Milne turned on the skill to make several surging runs with Sartor and Emma Teusner doing their best to slow him down.
Milne turned one of his runs into a goal as he managed to find room around Harper in goals, scoring for Tigers to take them into the lead.
Answering right back for Juniors was Harper, scoring off the left post, despite Sutton putting his body on the line twice stopping Juniors from scoring as the score finished 2-2 at half-time.
Juniors hit the ground running in the second stanza but Tigers’ defence stood, with Laura Milne picking the perfect time to have one of her best games of the season.
Scott Congdon looked set to score before Daniel Bugno put the handbrake on his run, with Juniors finally taking the lead as a great pass from Thomas Harper found Sartor to score from the top of the circle.
Daniel Bugno showed persistence pays, as he scored off a rebound as the pace of the game began to catch up with both teams.
The fresh legs of Nikita Sutton looked to prove to be the difference with her weaving run seeing her shot miss the goal by mere centimetres.
With the clock ticking away Milne made his way up field to score, with Juniors’ lead shrinking to just one.
Sartor and Harper answered by showing teamwork is the key to getting the ball up the field quickly, and before Tigers knew it Harper passed the ball to Sartor for the easiest of tap-ins.
Harper attempted to high flick the ball over players to the other end of the field, however it was too low, being classified as a dangerous ball, giving Tigers second hope.
But it seemed like déjà vu when Harper and Sartor ran the field together again with the later scoring, to seal the premiership for Juniors.
Thomas Harper was recognised as the best on ground in the final, while Paul Milne was congratulated for his excellent season as the highest goal scorer in the competition.