What you need to know:
- Winners of the round robin competitions involving Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Zimbabwe will advance to the 2023 FIH Junior Hockey World Cup scheduled for December 5-16 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (men) and December 6-17 in Santiago, Chile (women).
It was a bad day in office for Kenyan teams at the Hockey Junior African Cup as they lost their opening matches on Sunday in Ismailia, Egypt. Kenya women’s U-21 hockey team begun their campaign after losing 2-0 against hosts Egypt in Ismailia on Sunday. Coach Meshack Senge’s side, which travelled to Egypt on Saturday night, trailed by two goals at halftime after Solaiman Rowan and Elfatiri Sama scored in the first quarter.
Kenya squandered a penalty corner in the fourth minute before falling behind after Rowan gave the home side the lead by converting a penalty corner on seven minutes. Sama put Egypt 2-0 up with a field goal on 12 minutes.
The Kenyans showed a lot of improvement in the last three quarters. They put pressure on the hosts, but could not convert the few chances they had due to poor finishing. Back in the tournament for the first time since 2012, Kenya also suffered a blow late in the game when Nichole Odhiambo was sin-binned on 57 minutes.
Kenyan ladies will face Zimbabwe in their next match on Monday. Kenyan men succumbed to a solitary goal against Egypt. Coach Michael Malungu’s charges threw away the chance of getting a point after defender Allan Munene blasted a penalty flick in the 48th minute.
The East Africans let in an early goal from Adel Ziad after conceding a penalty corner in the first minute and never found the way back into the match. They suffered a blow on 25 minutes when Oscar Kibet picked a yellow card as Egypt went into the halftime break 1-0 up.
Egypt, too, were one man down after Taha Saber got yellow-carded at the beginning of the third quarter but again Kibet picked another warning two minutes later. In the tournament’s opening match, South Africa humbled Zimbabwe 3-0 after scoring field goals through Kock Tamlyn, Le Roux Mikkela and Mokoena Ntsopa in the first three quarters respectively.
The South Africans could have scored more had they utilised the 11 penalty corners they got. South Africa went into the fixture buoyed by a 100 percent winning record against Zimbabwe. They thrashed Zimbabwe 7-0 on March 24 and 10-0 on March 28 during the 2016 Junior African Cup.
Winners of the round robin competitions involving Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Zimbabwe will advance to the 2023 FIH Junior Hockey World Cup scheduled for December 5-16 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (men) and December 6-17 in Santiago, Chile (women).
Source: nation.africa/kenya
