{"id":74670,"date":"2025-06-09T13:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=74670"},"modified":"2025-06-09T13:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:06:10","slug":"williamson-and-rajah-bag-hat-tricks-in-cliftons-draw-with-st-charles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=74670","title":{"rendered":"Williamson and Rajah bag hat-tricks in Clifton&#8217;s draw with St Charles"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_74671\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-74671\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-74671\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Zach-Williamson-1-400x388.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"388\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-74671\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zach Williamson sparkled for Clifton with a hat-trick in their match against St Charles. Photo: Supplied.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Clifton College&#8217;<\/strong>s captain, <strong>Zach Williamson<\/strong>, and <strong>St Charles College<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Rowen Rajah<\/strong> sparkled brightly, netting hat-tricks in an eight-goal thriller featuring the two sides at St Charles on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The sides shared the spoils in an enthralling 4-4 draw in Pietermaritzburg.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from the hattrick heroes, <strong>Tristan Smith <\/strong>scored for Clifton and <strong>Blake Francis<\/strong> added another for St Charles.<\/p>\n<p>Clifton entered the contest after drawing <a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/slick-michaelhouse-wins-at-pretoria-boys-high\/\"><strong>2-2 draw away at St David\u2019s Marist Inanda<\/strong><\/a> the previous weekend.<\/p>\n<p>For most of the contest, the Durban school had to play catch-up, but Williamson wouldn&#8217;t let them lose.<\/p>\n<p>As they did against St David\u2019s, Clifton came from behind to force a draw.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It took us a while to get into the game but once we did, we moved the ball nicely,&#8221; <strong>Calvin Price<\/strong>, the Clifton coach, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SchoolofHockey\/\"><strong>Supersport Schools Plus<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hockey - Clifton College vs St Charles College - 7 June 2025\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BiGSyuZkjQo?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>&#8220;We fell behind because we let in some silly goals. Credit to <strong>Matt Coombes<\/strong> and his boys. They came out with a game plan, and it worked nicely for them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>St Charles took advantage of Clifton&#8217;s slow start and put the visitors under pressure. Their sustained excursions into the Clifton final third won the hosts a penalty corner early in the first chukka, and Coombes&#8217; charges made no mistake as Rajah converted to give the home team the lead.<\/p>\n<p>Five minutes in the second chukka, Williamson struck for the first time from a penalty corner to level the scores.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Saints <\/strong><\/em>quickly responded, with Rajah slotting another penalty corner to edge them 2-1 ahead, just two minutes after Williamson&#8217;s equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Having found their footing, Clifton dialled up the pressure on St Charles and their excursions won them a penalty corner six minutes into the third chukka. As he had done earlier, Williamson unfurled an outstanding drag flick to beat the St Charles goalkeeper and make it 2-2.<\/p>\n<p>Williamson had a hot hand, and his drag flicks had plenty of zip on them. Within two minutes, he had unfurled another classy flick into the Saints&#8217; net from the set piece to complete his hattrick while also giving the visitors the lead for the first time in the contest.<\/p>\n<p>Both teams had their penalty corner routines humming and the score became 3-3 when St Charles struck again with another Rajah penalty corner conversion.<\/p>\n<p>In the final chukka, St Charles appeared to be on the path to victory when they took the lead with a well-worked field goal through the left channel after six minutes, with Francis providing the finish. Clifton, though, had not travelled to St Charles to be handed a defeat.<\/p>\n<p>The visitors retained the ball well when they attacked and pressed well when out of possession. Then, with just four minutes remaining in the contest, <strong>David Rea<\/strong> forced a turnover close to the Saints&#8217; 23-metre line. Showing off some excellent close skills, Rea weaved his way past a couple of defenders before laying off to <strong>Bryon Ward<\/strong>, who fed <strong>Tristan Smith<\/strong>, and he scored levelled.<\/p>\n<p><b>RESULT<\/b><\/p>\n<p>St Charles College 4-4 Clifton College<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clifton College&#8217;s captain, Zach Williamson, and St Charles College&#8216;s Rowen Rajah sparkled brightly, netting hat-tricks in an eight-goal thriller featuring the two sides at St Charles on Saturday morning. The sides shared the spoils in an enthralling 4-4 draw in Pietermaritzburg. Aside from the hattrick heroes, Tristan Smith scored for Clifton and Blake Francis added [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":74671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74670","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\/74670","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=74670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}