{"id":73104,"date":"2025-05-23T14:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T12:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=73104"},"modified":"2025-05-23T14:30:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T12:30:35","slug":"high-flying-outeniqua-aiming-for-more-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=73104","title":{"rendered":"High-flying Outeniqua aiming for more glory"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_73105\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-73105\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-73105\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Ottas-2-400x268.jpg\" alt=\"Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua's first-team girls side has enjoyed a solid season so far. Photo: Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua\" width=\"400\" height=\"268\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-73105\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua&#8217;s first team has put together an outstanding season. Photo: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kwaggas\">Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The 2025 hockey season has been a splendid one for <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua<\/strong>&#8216;s first-team girls&#8217; side under the tutelage of head coach <strong>Niel Smit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The girls from George have played some excellent hockey, scored tons of goals, and have put on a show for their supporters every week, whether playing at home or away.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve already played a whopping 27 matches, recording 22 victories, one draw, and just four losses.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a record they\u2019ll want to bolster further when they host Gqeberha&#8217;s <strong>Ho\u00ebrskool Framesby<\/strong> on Saturday morning ,at <strong>11:00<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m happy with the season so far,&#8221; coach Smit told <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/hockey\/\">SuperSport Schools Plus<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With that said, we are in a small district, so to get top-quality hockey fixtures every weekend is a struggle. We would like to get more quality games regularly to improve our overall hockey performance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Smit&#8217;s side played two fixtures last weekend, against <strong>Langenhoven Gimnasium<\/strong> and <strong>Ho\u00ebr Volkskool,<\/strong> from Graaff-Reinet.\u00a0They were impressive in both outings, scoring 23 goals and conceding only two.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we did achieve what we set out to do in those two games, and the results show it with a 7-0 win over Langenhoven and a 16-2 win against Volkskool.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In fixtures like those, we try to set up certain goals in areas where we feel we can improve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The word &#8220;improvement&#8221; has certainly been at the heart of Outeniqua&#8217;s hockey programme in recent seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Despite not regularly facing some of the best schools in the country, they still hold their own against the top guns and participate in big events, like the annual <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/belgotex-sport-easter-hockey-tournament-double-glory-for-fairmont\/\">Belgotex Sport Easter Hockey Tournament<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_73106\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-73106\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-73106\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/outeniqua-1-400x268.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua\" width=\"400\" height=\"268\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-73106\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo:<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kwaggas\"> Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s a work in progress, but coach Smit is optimistic they&#8217;re taking the right steps in growing the game at the school.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, school hockey at this moment is growing at a fast pace, and it takes a lot of work to keep up with the high-flying teams and to get to their level,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We try to start with the u14s and work towards our first teams, but that comes with its challenges.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think our basic layout of what we want and need to achieve is getting attention, but there is still a lot of work that needs to happen if we want to compete with the best.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are fielding a lot of teams, and the pool of players we can select from is growing, and depth plays a big part in the big picture.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Against Framesby, the hosts will be led by skipper <strong>Mia Buxmann<\/strong>, who has over 100 caps to her name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Carlien Oosthuizen<\/strong> has been firing in the goals up front. In midfield, <strong>Zanelle Rensburg<\/strong> will look to control the tempo of the game while <strong>Katelyn Roussouw<\/strong> is trusted to keep the opposition out at the back.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Smit sees the Framesby clash as a chance for his team to further develop its systems and get the basics right.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We would like to again set specific goals in areas where we feel we need to improve and focus on them to get it right for when we face stronger opponents.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we get our basics right and focus on our performance, I feel it would be a good weekend for us,&#8221; he ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 hockey season has been a splendid one for Ho\u00ebrskool Outeniqua&#8216;s first-team girls&#8217; side under the tutelage of head coach Niel Smit. The girls from George have played some excellent hockey, scored tons of goals, and have put on a show for their supporters every week, whether playing at home or away. They&#8217;ve already [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":73105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73104","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\/73104","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}