{"id":66029,"date":"2025-03-02T17:43:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T15:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=66029"},"modified":"2025-03-02T17:43:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T15:43:20","slug":"no-team-unscathed-as-keen-competition-highlights-balling-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=66029","title":{"rendered":"No team unscathed as keen competition highlights Balling Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_66030\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66030\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-66030\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Voortrekker-hockey1-400x304.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"304\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lana Wessels, the captain of the hosts, Voortrekker, played her 100th game for the school in their 5-1 win over The Wykeham Collegiate. Photo: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bvhs1902\">Voortrekker on Facebook<\/a><\/strong>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The coaches and technical staff who made the trip to Bethlehem for the 11th edition of the <strong>Balling Hockey Festival<\/strong> will journey back to their bases on Sunday with a better idea of where their teams stand as they prepare for the 2024 hockey season.<\/p>\n<p>The annual showpiece included many of the top teams in the country, but none emerged with a clean record<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oranje<\/strong> sailed through the first three days, winning all of their games. That run was halted, though, by <strong>St Mary&#8217;s DSG <\/strong>on Sunday morning when the girls from Kloof, in KwaZulu-Natal, beat the Bloemfontein powerhouse 2-1 in a much-anticipated clash.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for <strong>Union High School<\/strong>, they failed to record a win over the four days of competition. However, they played well against <strong>St Dominic&#8217;s<\/strong> and ended their festival with an encouraging draw. That result was routine for St Dominic&#8217;s. They drew all four of their matches.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sekond\u00eare Meisieskool Oranje vs St Mary&amp;apos;s DSG - Kloof - Balling Hockey Tournament - 2 March 2025\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AQtIVmu2gzo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Emile Odendaal<\/strong>, the festival director, was also there with<strong> The Wykeham Collegiate (TWC<\/strong>), whom he started coaching last month. One of his goals was to help turn around the school\u2019s hockey programme, and the Pietermaritzburg school certainly made progress during the event. They finished on a high note, with a 3-2 win over <strong>Menlopark,<\/strong> which was the team that kept St Mary&#8217;s from going undefeated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Eunice <\/strong>was another side that finished strongly. Coach <strong>Nika Coertzen&#8217;<\/strong>s side registered a 4-0 win over <strong>Noordheuwel<\/strong>. The girls from Krugersdorp experienced all three results over the four days they spent at Voortrekker and will travel back to Gauteng with their heads held high.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sasolburg<\/strong> finished their campaign with a 0-0 draw against Noordheuwel&#8217;s archrivals, <strong>Monument<\/strong>. That was also the outcome of the game between St Dominic&#8217;s and <strong>St John&#8217;s DSG<\/strong>. Draws don&#8217;t sting like losses, so none of the four teams will be too dispirited by those results.<\/p>\n<p>The Balling Festival, the first of the 2025 season, is now in the books. The hockey season is here and the action will soon come thick and fast. Buckle up!<\/p>\n<p><strong>RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oranje 1st XI 1-2 St Mary&#8217;s<br \/>\nOranje 2nd XI 4-1 Witteberg<br \/>\nUnion 1-1 St Dominic&#8217;s<br \/>\nOur Lady of Fatima 1-1 Oranje 1st XI<br \/>\nTWC 3-2 Menlopark<br \/>\nEunice 4-0 Noordheuwel<br \/>\nSasolburg 0-0 Monument<br \/>\nOranje 2nd XI 2-0 Goudveld<br \/>\nSt Dominic&#8217;s 0-0 St John&#8217;s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The coaches and technical staff who made the trip to Bethlehem for the 11th edition of the Balling Hockey Festival will journey back to their bases on Sunday with a better idea of where their teams stand as they prepare for the 2024 hockey season. The annual showpiece included many of the top teams in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":66030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66029","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\/66029","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=66029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}