Na­tion­al men's hock­ey ace Teague Mar­cano scored his third hat-trick of the sea­son to lead Hol­combe Hock­ey Club to a 4-2 win over Bee­ston in the Eng­lish Pre­mier Hock­ey League at Hol­combe Pitch on Sat­ur­day.

Host club Bee­ston was first to get on the score sheet with Jamie Rawl­ings fir­ing them ahead from a penal­ty-cor­ner set play in the 11th minute.

Ten­sions then flared up with Hol­combe's Samuel Tay­lor and Joseph Paul of Bee­ston both be­ing is­sued green cards in the 15th minute, while Mar­cano al­so picked up a green card in the 24th minute.

How­ev­er, ten min­utes lat­er he got his team on lev­el terms be­fore he added a penal­ty-cor­ner in the 43, fol­lowed by his third of the con­test, a minute lat­er for a 3-1 lead while car­ry­ing his sea­son tal­ly to 14 goals in six match­es, with three hat-tricks.

With five min­utes left in the match, Hen­ry Croft got a sec­ond item for Bee­ston to trail 2-3, but Tay­lor then made cer­tain of vic­to­ry for the vis­it­ing Hol­combe un­der the su­per­vi­sion of T&T coach­es, Kwand­wane Browne and Dil­let Gilkes with a 59th minute penal­ty-cor­ner goal.

With the win, Hol­combe end­ed the first half of the sea­son with 28 points from 11 match­es, in­clu­sive of nine t wins, one draw and one de­feat while Old Geor­gians top the stand­ings with a max­i­mum 33 points, with Sur­biton third with 26, fol­lowed by Wim­ble­don with 23, Hamp­stead & West­min­ster with 19 points and Oxted with 14.

The rest of the stand­ings in­cludes East Grind­stead (11), Bee­ston (10), Cardiff & Met­ro­pol­i­tan (10), South­gate (five), Rich­mond (four) and win­less Bow­don.

Mar­cano is play­ing his first sea­son with Hol­combe af­ter he made made the club switch along­side for­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al, 46-year-old Browne, who was ap­point­ed di­rec­tor of hock­ey and head coach of Hol­combe af­ter stints with South­gate Hock­ey Club, Hamp­stead & West­min­ster, and East Grin­stead.

Ear­li­er this year, Mar­cano and Browne just fell short of lift­ing the Eng­land Hock­ey League Mixed Tier I Knock­out Cham­pi­onship ti­tle with South­gate af­ter they were beat­en in the de­cider by Oxted at South­gate Hock­ey Club in Lon­don, Eng­land.

In the lead-up to the ti­tle match, Mar­cano (28th, 43rd, 68th) and Charles Hamil­ton (5th, 23rd, 36th) scored hat-tricks in their team’s 12-0 de­mo­li­tion of Bris­tol Fire­brands Flamethrow­ers in their semi­fi­nal on May 26 while Oxted spanked Alder­ley Edge 7-2 in the oth­er semi­fi­nal.

In their pre­vi­ous match­es, South­gate se­cured wins over East­cote (4-0), West Hamp­stead (5-0), St Al­bans (4-2), Blue­harts (2-1), Read­ing (3-0), and Swin­don (4-1).

Mar­cano has so far en­joyed a stel­lar 2024 cam­paign both at club and coun­try lev­el.

With 31 goals in 42 caps for his coun­try, in­clud­ing five hat-tricks, he played in the in­au­gur­al FIH Hock­ey5s World Cup in Oman in Feb­ru­ary and scored 16 goals, the sec­ond most in the com­pe­ti­tion as T&T fin­ished eight of 16 teams.

The 23-year-old Mar­cano has 33 goals in 12 com­pet­i­tive Hock­ey5s ap­pear­ances for his na­tion­al side while in ten match­es at var­i­ous age-group lev­els for T&T, he has al­so scored a fur­ther 12 goals.

And in Sep­tem­ber he fired in a tour­na­ment-high 29 goals in sev­en match­es in lead­ing to top spot at the four-team Men’s Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge or­gan­ised by the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion to qual­i­fy for the next Men’s Pan Amer­i­can Cup.

Pri­or to mov­ing to Hol­combe, both Browne and and Mar­cano end­ed the 2021/2022 sea­son with Hamp­stead & West­min­ster in the Eng­land Men’s Hock­ey League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion “Top Six” com­pe­ti­tion in the fourth spot while both men were al­so part of the club’s semi­fi­nal run in the Eng­land Hock­ey League Su­per6s Men’s Pre­mier Di­vi­sion In­door

The free-scor­ing Mar­cano took his goal scor­ing form to South­gate and fin­ished with a tour­na­ment-high 31 goals from eight match­es, eight more than his near­est ri­val in lead­ing South­gate to top spot in the 2023/2024 Eng­land Hock­ey League Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Di­vi­sion One com­pe­ti­tion, and pro­mo­tion to the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion for next sea­son.

In his first Out­door sea­son at South­gate in 2022, Mar­cano was named the tour­na­ment’s lead­ing scor­er with 30 goals, 19 in the di­vi­sion­al round play­offs af­ter he fired South­gate to one of the two pro­mo­tion spots in the six-club Eng­land Hock­ey League Adult Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion Two.

These strikes came from every phase of the game and in­clud­ed 16 open-field goals, ten from penal­ty cor­ners, and four from penal­ty strokes, and his tal­ly was four more goals than Si­mon Egerton of Bow­don, while Am­mad Butt scored 23 goals.