Last night the Premier A Water Polo played in the final of the Wellington Secondary Schools Water Polo League against two time defending champions St Pat’s Town. St Pat’s had gone through pool play unbeaten including beating the Prem A’s by 2 goals so we headed into the match as the underdogs.
In the first quarter
there were early chances both ways before Sam Graham broke the deadlock with
the only goal of the quarter. In what was to become an outstanding performance, Lachie Griffiths was acting as an
impenetrable wall in the goal.
The 2nd quarter was much like the first. We
created a number of good opportunities but were unable to finish. St Pats
levelled the scores up late in the quarter.
The start of the 3rd quarter saw our lads start
to get lax on defence and we allowed the ball to get to 2m far too easily. St Pats scored 3 goals in relatively quick time to
put our side under immense pressure. Campbell McHugh scored a well-constructed
goal on extra man and soon after Ben Blyde found his range and bought the
deficit down to one.
The 4th quarter started with Hamish Eagle scoring
an absolute screamer of a goal from about 9m. St Pats then put themselves back
into the lead. Sam then backed up his solid defensive effort with a second goal
to draw us level with 3 minutes to go. With 1 minute to go we unleashed our
strike weapon on extra man and Finn Martin found the back of the net to give a
a one goal lead with only 42 seconds left. Solid defence then saw us gain
possession with 32 seconds left on the clock but rather than using up the time
we pushed the ball into congested space and lost possession. The resulting
counter attack saw St Pats level the score with 3 seconds left on the clock.
The tie at the end of regulation meant a penalty shootout.
Ben shot first and duly scored. Lachie got a hand
on the first St Pats shot, pushing it high. Then both us and St Pats missed
shots before Russell Pearce banged in a bounce shot. St Pats levelled the score
by scoring two and blocking one of ours. Josh Beattie showed composure to put
his penalty in the bottom corner. St Pats levelled the scores and put it to
sudden death. Once again Ben slammed his shot home. Lachie, who had been
outstanding in goal during the game then blocked the best St Pats shooter for a
second time to give us the victory 10-9 on penalties.
This is the first Wellington League title for any
PNBHS team and congratulations goes to the boys for achieving one of their team
goals.
Thanks must go the minivan load of young Palmy Boys’ water polo players who made the trip down to support the lads. The vocal level of support for a team playing 150km from where they live was impressive.
