BECC2023 | WPCC Beavers win Maiden Belgotex Elite Club Challenge

BECC2023| WPCC Beavers win Maiden Belgotex Elite Club Challenge

Six of the best club sides gathered at Riverside Sports to contest the Belgotex Elite Club Challenge for 2023. As the sun sets on this thrilling tournament, only one question remained: Who would emerge victorious? Would Riverside Hockey defend their title or would Western Province Cricket Club etch their names as the new champions for the first time in the tournament’s history.

In a highly competitive game both teams took turns to put their claims to the trophy at the forefront before the founding member from the Cape Town southern suburbs ultimately emerged victorious to jubilation and celebrations from their fans.

Brady Wiseman opened the scoring with a bullet drag flick into the roof of the goal and you may have thought it would be one way traffic after that start. But Riverside fought back gainfully and having narrowly missed one chance, Ruby Kraus wasn’t to miss again. She picked up a beautiful pass from Jacinta Jubb and fired home an unstoppable reverse stick strike leaving the game 1-1 at the half-time interval.

Things got even rosier for the hosts in the second half when they won themselves a penalty corner. Charlene Boshoff picked up the ball at the top of the circle and fired in a hard low strike that evaded Manisha Desai and Wiseman and gave the defending champions the lead for the first time in the game. It was though, a lead they would not hold for long. A wonderful moment of quality saw Rebecca Kapps feed Sasha Siversten and her skipper turned inside the brilliant Marcelle Keet before finishing a cross goal. It really was a sublime flowing goal and parity was once again restored.

Cricket Club wouldn’t need a further invitation as they took a fortuitous lead before the quarter break. Rebecca Kapps reacted quickest to a loose ball and picked it up on the base line. She fired it across goal catching a wicked deflection off of the defenders stick and inside the near post to leave Aphiwe Dimba rooted to the spot and to turn a deficit into a lead with 15 minutes remaining.

 The Beavers thought they had wrapped up the game when their all action start to the fourth quarter was rewarded with Erin Coetzee popping up on the back post to tap it home after more good work from Ashleigh Thomas, but against the run of play Riverside themselves punished a moment of hesitation from the visiting defense and Glenda Swart made it a one goal game.

The Cape side were then dealt a tough blow receiving a green and yellow card almost simultaneously but showed tremendous grit to ride out any possible challenge before ending the game with a very well-deserved goal for Nicole Koenig.

They had scored 15 goals across their three games and the 2023 champions were fully deserving of their maiden title and the R20 000 prize that comes with it.

Women’s Awards:
Goalkeeperof the Tournament: Charlize Swanepoel (Phoenix Hockey Club)]

Top Goal scorer: Ruby Kraus (Riverside), Nicole Koenig (WPCC) & Margueritevan Wyk (Phoenix)

Player of the Tournament: Sasha Siversten (WPCC)

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Final Standings:

1 – WPCC

2 – Riverside

3 – Crusaders

4 – Wanderers

5 – Phoenix

6 – Kearsney