Bishop Anstey Junior beat Dunross Prepatory 8-2 to win the Boys Final of the First Citizens National Primary Schools Mini Polo League at the Flying Fish Swimming Pool in Federation Park, St. Clair last Saturday. The extremely tense game must have been physically and mentally demanding on both teams. Bishop Anstey Junior and Dunross Preparatory had met in these finals years before, so this time they would have been battling for the gold medal, as well as for bragging rights. For Dunross to make it happen, they needed to contain Chad Clarke-Rowley from Bishop Anstey, the top goal scorer in the league.
Dunross got off to a fantastic start, scoring a rocket from David Jones, but Bishop Anstey responded quickly with an unstoppable shot from Chad Clarke-Rowley, leaving both teams locked at a goal each all the way into the second quarter. Then, Jean Luc Hinds and Kristoff West stepped up and scored a goal apiece to turn the tables in favour of Bishop Anstey while the tenacious David Jones kept Dunross in the fight, scoring a long-range goal in the third quarter. But, by the fourth quarter, the powerful left arm of Chad Clarke-Rowley proved too much for Dunross. He unleashed three fabulous shots, pushing his team far ahead. Jean Luc Hinds added two more to the score, and Bishop Anstey won the encounter, 8-2. There were three games on the card for the evening, and while the coaches and players finalised their tactics during the warm-up period, the anxious parents and supporters appeared tenser than the players themselves.
Unpredictably in the girls final Diamond Vale Primary fell five goals behind their arch rivals, Dunross Preparatory in the first quarter. Whatever their strategy was for stopping the artful Tiffany Halloute from Dunross, it was not working. She had already scored four goals to put Dunross way ahead in the game. Then, Diamond Vale suddenly came alive when Zalika Moses and Chianne Davidson scored three consecutive goals in the second and third quarters to scramble their way back into the game, but it was too late to catch up to Dunross who took home the gold medal with two additional goals from Hailey De Leon, to reach the final score of 6-3.
The second final was the long awaited grudge-match between Richmond Street Boys and Diamond Vale Primary for the Boys bronze-medal. Diamond Vale hit first with a scorcher from Gabriel Smith that caught the Richmond Street goalie still asleep, but Richmond Street's Jordan De Souza responded quickly and both teams matched punches, pound for pound, with goal after goal from Khalil Alleyne of Diamond Vale and Jayveer Katwaroo of Richmond Street. Then, at the top of the fourth quarter with the score level at three goals each, Richmond Street Boys went after all-the-marbles with two spectacular goals from Jayveer Katwaroo, plus one more in the dying minutes of the game from the energetic substitute Josiah Grant. Diamond Vale battled to level the score again, but Richmond Street took home the bronze medal, 6-3.
