Another Sunday afternoon and evening in the gym.

First of at 3:30pm the Vikings Women team faced the Vic Uni Women team. Today our team had to play with a field player in goal (Great goalkeeping Fran and Kirstie) as Maddie was unfortunately not available. We also welcomed back Catherine (who is studying in Dunedin and here for a home visit). The Vic Uni team played as well with two players who are here for a home visit from Dunedin (Celia and Bella).
Now to the game – both teams were starting well into the game but half way through the first half the Vic Uni team could establish a 3 goal lead (5:8). Some major mistakes in defense (GOOD MORNING GIRLS) at the end of the first half saw the lead for Vic Uni going up to 6 at halftime (10:16).
At halftime the gorls were reminded on playing some defense and also keeping the tempo up. In the second half the Vikings women faught their way back in the game and closed in on the Vic Uni lead, goal by goal (13:18, 17:20, 22:24). The defense was working way better now and we came to easy fastbreak goals. But in the last 10-12 minutes Vic Uni fought back and didn’t want to surrender that easily. Two minutes to go and the Vikings closed down to 30:31, Vic Uni has the ball but the Vkings defense is able to intercept the ball and runs the fastbreak … Unfortunately the ball was rushed forward a bit to fast and Vic Uni were able to intercept the ball too and scored in the following attack to go up by 2 goals again (30:32). Game ends.
What a game – both teams didn’t had their goalies available but the players filling in were showing some great skills and braveness too. I would almost say that this was possibly the best women game I’ve seen in the Wellington League, especially taking in consideration that only two players (one on each side) were foreigners. Well done to both teams and Congrats to Vic Uni to the win. The Vikings girls learned a lesson of “playing one good half isn’t enough” but it certainly showed that especially in attack we start playing what we are practicing over and over again.
Vikings Women: Kirstie; Alex 7, Catherine 5, Fran 4, Lizzie 4, Ellie 3, Bridget 3, Laura 3, Hannah 1

The Vikings Men were then on court at 8pm, playing the Spartanz team. The game started like there is no tomorrow (5:2, 10:4) and half way through the first half (15:7) it looked like that this is going to be a long nite for the Spartanz team. But suddenly the Vikings game somehow started stuttering – mainly because instead of shooting the ball in the back of the net, the players started to reshape the post. I stopped counting, but I honestly think we hit the post at least 15 times in the second part of the first half. The Spartanz instead fought their way back into the game and were within in 3 goals (20:17) at Halftime.
In the second half the Vikings finally avoided the post and build up their lead again (27:21). Especially Emmanuel showed us with his shots how to score and avoid the post. The rest of the game it showed that the depth of the Vikings bench in compare to the Spartanz bench played out (Vikings had 3 subs and Spartanz just 1) and the so the final standing was 42:28.
Vikings Men: Sam G; Todd 11, Emmanual 7, Nino 6, Luke 5, Daniel 5/2, Jack 3, Sam K 2, Pierre 2, Nico 1

Well Done to both teams!
Next weekend their are no league games but the U20 Women National Team will have a trainings camp in Wellington.
The Sunday after (5th July 2015) is the 6th League games with the Women facing the Spartanz (at 8pm) and the Men facing Vic Uni (at 5pm).