Sunday the 11th of September marks the historic day where both our Hockey Women’s Vic League 1 and Reserves teams became the 2022 Premiers! 

The road to victory consisted of twice-weekly training sessions from January to September, 4 practice matches, 18 rounds of home and away games, and an unforgettable final series. 

With Monash spirit in the air, the Vic League 1 Reserves kicked off at 11:45am against the Mornington Peninsula Hockey Club at Melbourne Sports Centre in Parkville. After having gone down 2-0 to their opponents in the semi-final, the Reserve team took out the first quarter with Trini Woodman scoring a reverse-stick goal which thrilled the onlooking crowd. Mornington secured a tight penalty corner in the final seconds of the match however,  Monash worked hard to defend 4 penalty corners in a row before the siren rang, ultimately coming out on top and holding onto the 1-0 scoreline. 

As our Reserves team claimed glory over their competitors, our Vic League 1 team entered the pitch against the Hockey Geelong Sharks. Within the first 3 minutes of the game, Monash scored 2 clinical penalty corner goals from Emerald Beath and Courtney Knowler. The team was aware that there were still 4 quarters of the Hockey game to go, and knuckled down to control and maintain possession of the ball. Near the end of the second half, Monash’s Rachel Rodrigues McGown scored another goal. Despite Geelong emerging with 1 goal in the second half, the strong defence led by Thérèse McArthur helped maintain the 3-1 scoreline to guarantee the premiership win.

Speaking to Jasmine Alysha, Women’s Vice president at the Monash Hockey Club who also played in the Vic League 1 about the grand finals, she loved the incredible atmosphere and the “huge turnout of supporters from the club and community”.
 
Additionally, we asked Jasmine what the training and preparation was like to achieve such a feat. 

“Training for finals is in many ways, no different to training throughout the season, however there was some more excitement and buzz in the air. We were led by our coaches, Ivan Britto, Dustin Haines, Trent Bussell and Graeme Chittendon, who were very focused on what had to be done. The Vic League 1 team watched back some game footage so we knew what we needed to work on specifically. We fine-tuned our penalty corners, penalty shootouts, defensive penalty corners, and our press - we knew that our consistent pressure would create turnovers, which would lead to goals”.

With both the top 2 women’s teams in the grand finals, it enabled them to train and bond with each other throughout the year. Through this hard work and determination, both our Women’s hockey teams came out on top as the champions and their victories will be etched into the record books.

Congratulations to both our Women’s Hockey teams for becoming 2022 Premiers and we wish them the best of luck in their future competitions! 
 

If you’re interested in following their journey, you can find them on Facebook and Instagram. 
 

Written by Mon Ouk