{"id":65870,"date":"2025-03-01T06:21:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T04:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=65870"},"modified":"2025-03-01T06:21:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T04:21:24","slug":"big-guns-flex-muscles-at-balling-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=65870","title":{"rendered":"Big guns flex muscles at Balling Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
St Mary’s DSG Kloof’s Balling Festival teams. Photo: St Mary’s DSG on Facebook<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Free State powerhouses, Eunice<\/strong>\u00a0and Sekond\u00eare Meisieskool Oranje<\/strong>\u00a0were unbeaten after Friday’s action at the Balling Hockey Festival <\/strong>in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

The festival kicked off with two games on Thursday and then hit full throttle on Friday, with 10 matches being played at the Voortrekker Astro<\/strong> and New Horizon College<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On Thursday evening, St Anne’s<\/strong> recorded a narrow 3-2 victory over the hosts, Voortrekker, after an entertaining end-to-end encounter that offered spectators insight into what to expect over the next three days.<\/p>\n

The Wykeham Collegiate (TWC)<\/strong> registered their first victory of the festival, shortly afterwards, with a 4-2 win over Union High School<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Coach Morne Odendaal <\/strong>believes his St Anne\u2019s side is on a path to becoming one of the best teams in the country and they showed their intentions to achieve that status with a second win in as many matches when they overcame Sasolburg<\/strong> 2-0. They were aiming to make it three in three. However, they ran into an inspired Oranje outfit and went down 0-1.<\/p>\n

Oranje’s victory over St Anne’s came on the back of a high-scoring 5-3 win over Menlopark <\/strong>as Gys van Schalkwyk<\/strong>‘s charges opened with successive victories.<\/p>\n

Eunice enjoyed their Friday outings, scoring four goals and conceding none. Coach Nika Coertzen<\/strong>\u2019s side produced polished performances against TWC and St John\u2019s DSG<\/strong>, winning those contests 3-0 and 1-0 respectively.<\/p>\n

Menlopark was given a good run for their money when they took on St Mary’s DSG Kloof<\/strong>. They bounced back from their defeat against Oranje to emerge with a 3-2 win from a hotly contested afternoon clash. The Pretoria school showed their mettle by hanging on to win despite successive games against two top-ranked outfits.<\/p>\n

Voortrekker bounced back from their loss to St Anne’s in the festival opener and held their own when they went up against Noordheuwel<\/strong> and Our Lady of Fatima<\/strong>, with both matches finishing in 1-1 draws. They will be eager to improve on those showings to give their supporters something to cheer when they go up against Menlopark on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Spectators can also look forward to a mouthwatering contest between Eunice and St Mary’s Kloof on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thursday<\/strong><\/p>\n

St Anne’s 3-2 Voortrekker
\nTWC 4\u20132 Union<\/p>\n

Friday<\/strong><\/p>\n

Witteberg 4-1 Union
\nSt Anne’s 2-0 Sasolburg
\nEunice 3-0 TWC
\nOranje 5-3 Menlopark
\nOranje 2nd XI 2-2 St Dominic’s
\nGoudveld 0-8 St John’s DSG
\nNoordheuwel 1-1 Voortrekker
\nOranje 1-0 St Anne’s
\nSt Mary’s Kloof 2-3 Menlopark
\nMonument 0-1 TWC
\nOur Lady of Fatima 1-1 Voortrekker
\nEunice 1-0 St John’s DSG<\/p>\n

Fixtures<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saturday, 1 March<\/strong><\/p>\n

06:30 – St Anne’s vs Goudveld
\n07:25 \u2013 Sasolburg vs St Dominic’s Boksburg
\n08:20 \u2013 Oranje 1 vs St John’s
\n09:15 \u2013 Eunice vs St Mary’s DSG Kloof
\n10:10 \u2013 Our Lady of Fatima vs Monument
\n11:05 \u2013 TWC vs Goudveld
\n12:00 \u2013 Voortrekker vs Menlopark
\n12:00 – Orange 2 vs Union (New Horizon)
\n12:55 \u2013 Noordheuwel vs Witteberg
\n12:00 \u2013 Oranje 2 vs Union
\n13:50 \u2013 Eunice vs Our Lady of Fatima
\n14:25 \u2013 Goudveld vs Sasolburg (New Horizon)
\n14:45 \u2013 St John’s DSG vs Menlopark
\n15:40 \u2013 Monument vs Oranje 1
\n16:35 \u2013 BVHS vs TWC
\n16:50 \u2013 Witteberg vs St Dominic’s Boksburg (New Horizon)
\n17:30 \u2013 Noordheuwel vs St Mary’s Kloof<\/p>\n

Sunday, 2 March<\/strong><\/p>\n

06:30 – Union vs St Dominic\u2019s Boksburg
\n06:30 \u2013 Oranje 2 vs Witteberg (New Horizon)
\n08:10 \u2013 Our Lady of Fatima vs Oranje 1
\n09:05 \u2013 Sasolburg vs Monument
\n10:00 \u2013 St Dominic’s vs St John\u2019s
\n10:55 \u2013 Eunice vs Noordheuwel
\n11:50 \u2013 TWC vs Menlopark
\n12:45 \u2013 Oranje 1 vs St Mary’s Kloof
\n14:25 \u2013 Oranje 2 vs Goudveld<\/p>\n

Two age group events – u14 and u16 – will be run concurrently with the u19 competition with most matches being played at New Horizon College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Free State powerhouses, Eunice\u00a0and Sekond\u00eare Meisieskool Oranje\u00a0were unbeaten after Friday’s action at the Balling Hockey Festival in Bethlehem. The festival kicked off with two games on Thursday and then hit full throttle on Friday, with 10 matches being played at the Voortrekker Astro and New Horizon College. On Thursday evening, St Anne’s recorded a narrow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":65871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}