Upper Great Southern claim one title from five divisions at annual junior carnival

The Upper Great Southern Hockey Association held its annual junior carnival at the weekend.

A total of 38 teams took part in the carnival across five divisions consisting of Year 5-6 boys and girls, Year 7-8 boys and girls and Year 9-10 mixed.

Teams came from YMCC, Moderians, Exies, Central Great Southern, Lower Great Southern, Avon, Collie, Esperance and Upper Great Southern with more than 125 games played on seven fields.

Spectators enjoyed great hockey skills and sportsmanship.

Lower Great Southern defeated Upper Great Southern Blacks 3-0 in the Year 5-6 girls grand final before the tides were turned in the boys’ grand final with Uppers prevailing 2-1 against Lower Great Southern.

Moderians defeated Lower Great Southern 3-0 in the Year 7-8 girls’ decider while YMCC also handed Lower Great Southern a 2-0 loss in the Year 7-8 boys’ grand final.

The Year 9-10 grand final produced a great contest with YMCC Red drawing with YMCC green, however YMCC Red were declared champions on a countback.

The UGSHA thanked all the volunteers who put in many hours of work to make the carnival a success.

In conjunction with the carnival, there was a Hockey WA high-performance visit to launch the new Hockey WA coach and play website.

A total of 15 coaches attended and were impressed with the new site.

Hockey WA also talked about the new direction it will be taking in the high-performance area.

They are looking at developing a regional competition with six metropolitan sides and five regional sides to compete against each other.

They will be in three different age groups, under-13, under-15 and under-18 and players will be selected for State team squads from these events.

On Sunday morning, the UGSHA, in conjunction with Hockey WA, held the first under-13 trial in Narrogin.

From this trial, players are selected to go into round two held in Perth.

There were more than 60 players involved in this trial and both Hockey WA and the UGSHA were extremely happy with the outcome.