Both the South African U21 Men and Women celebrated qualification to the FIH Hockey Junior World Cups today in Egypt by completing a 100% group stage. In the process both teams qualified for the Junior African Cup final which takes place on Thursday afternoon.
The SA U21 Women needed to avoid defeat by 5 goals to qualify for the final, but were not in a forgiving mood as they put the hosts to the sword in a brilliantly executed display of attacking game plan and skills. It took the South Africans only five minutes to open the scoring but they never looked back after that. 8 different goal scorers combined to put 11 goals past the hosts.
Kutlwano May was credited with a hat-trick while Cerian Fourie netted a brace. They were joined on the scoring charts by individual strikes for Kayla Swarts, Mikkela le Roux, Jenna Fyvie, Tamlyn Kock, Katlego Bodibe and Caylin Maree.
The South Africans will take on Zimbabwe in the final on Thursday with the added goal of lifting the trophy!
For the SA U21 Men it was a similar case of needing to avoid defeat to confirm a place in the final, but defeat was never realistically on the cards in a superb performance. Viwe Mbata opened the scoring before parity was restored by Sheldon Kimtai. That was as good as it got for Kenya as the South Africans systematically added to the scoreline at regular occurrence.
Ross Montgomery and James Flint made it 3-1 at the Half-Time break. Three more goals were added in the second half through Calvin Davis, Nathan Ansell and Hans Neethling. South Africa secured a spot in the final and with it a chance to dethrone Egypt as junior champions of Africa.
