Our North Harbour Hygiene Systems Senior Women took out the final of Auckland League last night in a nail biting 5-4 game against rivals Marist.

After not having a game for a few weeks the girls went into the game excited to be playing and had that Gold medal in their sights. 

They started off strong with plently of opportunities at goal but unable to convert these. Luckily the girls were able to keep Marist out for majority of the quarter. They ended up going down 1-0 at the end of the first.

The second quarter saw our girls come out firing again and working hard on both defence and attack trying to convert their shots into goals. They were unsuccessful with this until the last few seconds of the quarter with Bernadette Doyle scoring a counter attack goal to put the girls on the scoreboard. Going into half time still down 3-1. 

Third quarter saw the girls pick up their game and the goals started to come. A big shot from Center Forward Emily Nicholson saw the girls creep back into the game to be down by one. Marist fought back with two goals converted from 6 on 5 attack but a penalty call late in the quarter saw Ema Carevic score and the girls go into the final quarter down by one.

The girls had 3min of extra man in the final quarter due to Marist being down a player. Some bad passing meant the girls were unable to convert these man up opportunities until the last few minutes with another goal from Ema Carevic, putting the girls even with Marist at 4 - 4. The girls had just over a minute to go and knew they had to score this attack if they wanted to win. The passing had improved and a shot came from Nadia Pavlovich which found the back of the net. The girls were up by one with just under a minute to go. Some big defence and team work from our girls saw them steal the ball on Marist's final attack followed shortly by a time out from coaches Richard and Bucky.

The girls had only 17sec left in which they had to hold the ball. They did this successfully and took the 2017 Auckland League title.

Congratulations to the Girls, Janet, Richard and Bucky on a fantastic win. We look forward to seeing the the team compete in National Lesgue in the weeks to come.

We are also sad to farewell Megan Perry from the Senior Women's team who played her last game on Friday Night. Megan said she "is glad to finish on a win with an awesome bunch of girls and looks forward to seeing the girls compete in National League over the coming weeks". We will miss having Megan in the pool and wish her all the best for the future.