Namibia break new ground

THE Namibian Seaflower Women’s hockey team broke new ground by finishing ninth at the 2018 Women’s Indoor Hockey World Cup after beating the United States on a penalty shootout on Saturday.

In an action-packed match the United States led 3-1 at halftime, but Namibia struck back to go 5-3 ahead with four minutes to go. The momentum, however, shifted to the United States as they scored two late goals to draw level at 5-5 to force the match into a penalty shootout.

Namibia’s keeper Petro Stoffberg was in excellent form, saving all three of the States’ shots and although Gillian Hermanus’ shot was saved, Kiana Cormack scored to give Namibia a 1-0 win in the shootout.

For Namibia, Maggy Mengo and Kiana Cormack scored two goals each and Dure Boshoff one goal, while the United States’ goals were scored by Mary Barham (2), Ali Campbell (2) and Madison Orobono.

It was Namibia’s best performance yet at the World Cup after they finished tenth seven years ago and Namibian coach Erwin Handura hailed his team on a great performance.

“I’m really proud of my team – they played hard and picked up knocks here and there, but they gave a good account of themselves and they were good ambassadors for Namibia,” he said.

“It’s a high standard that we’ve set now, and it means that from now on we will have to improve – we won two, drew two and lost two games, so that’s pretty good. That’s a high standard that we have set for ourselves and it shows that our hockey has really improved, but we will just have to work harder now,” he added.

Handura said they were confident going into the penalty shootout and their faith as a team helped to pull them through.

“We felt very confident going into the penalty shootout and before that we also prayed as we always do and God helped us,” he said.

The victory helped make up for the heartbreak of missing out on the quarterfinals when they drew 5-5 against Russia on Friday.

Going into the match Namibia held their fate in their own hands as a victory against Russia would have put them into the quarterfinals for the first time, in only their second appearance at the World Cup.

In another humdinger of a match, Namibia took a 2-1 lead at halftime after goals by Gillian Hermanus and Kiana Cormack, and when Namibia won a penalty early in the second half, Cormack showed her big match temperament to put Namibia 3-1 ahead.

Russia immediately struck back with two goals in three minutes, but Mengo restored Namibia’s lead with a brilliant goal on 29 minutes. She started an attack in her own half and beat several defenders with a strong run before beating the Russian keeper from close range to put Namibia 4-3 ahead.

Russia once again equalised, but Namibia immediately restored their lead when Cormack found an unmarked Dure Boshoff with a long pass and she beat the outrushing keeper to put Namibia 5-4 ahead with five minutes to go.

Russia however attacked relentlessly and scored in the final minute of the match to tie the match at 5-5 and dash Namibia’s dream.

The 16-year-old Cormack had a brilliant tournament, displaying tremendous composure and a big match temperament far beyond her years to finish as the joint top goal scorer by Saturday evening.

Cormack scored nine goals in only six matches, and was lying joint first with Yana Vorushylo of Ukraine, while Marlena Rybacha of Poland was third on eight goals.

Handura said they would now try to organise more matches against some of the world’s top teams.

“We are having talks with several of the teams here to see if we can maybe have a three or four-nation series later this year, because the continuity has to be there, and we have to continue with the momentum that we picked up at the World Cup.

“We have to take it from here and move forward to another level because now our game has to improve. That means that we must regularly challenge the top six nations in the world, teams like Holland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belarus and Ukraine on a regular basis or at least once a year,” he said.