A last minute trademark drag-flick from a penalty corner by Ahmed Ewis posted a 3-2 win for Khalsa-A over HKFC-A in the final week of the Hong Kong Hockey Association Premier Division confirmed Khalsa-A’s lead position for the 2013-2014 season.
Khalsa won 14 of their 16 games and drew the other two matches to win the Hong Kong Premier Division title. Throughout the season they scored 97 goals and conceded only 21—demonstrating their strong mid-field, defence, and their exceptional goal scoring capability.
Only Football Club (HKFC-A) came close with an 85-25 tally; Punjab-A, the second placed team in the standings, had 71-40.
Khalsa’s two drawn matches were in the first half of the season—when they tied a match on Sept 29 against a greatly improved Shaheen-A side 5-all; then faltered again on Nov 17 against Punjab-A 3-all, when Punjab had their four ex-Olympians, Sahail Abbas, Mudassar Ali Khan Waseem Ahmed and Sukhwinder Singh Gabbar in their team.
That November match against Punjab was the most difficult for Khalsa during the season. They were losing 2-nil at half-time and had played in a reserved manner against the experienced Punjab International players. It took Manager/Coach Gurcharan Singh to inspire confidence and realign his team’s strategy at half-time. After the mid-game discussions Khalsa came out with a far more purposeful approach and moved into a 3-2 lead before Punjab scored to tie the match in the final minutes of the match.
This comeback gave the team great confidence for the rest of the season and they then won all of their matches to take the title.
Punjab-A also finished with a 2-nil win against Valley-A to take second place in the Premier Division standings ahead of HKFC-A. Punjab-A have maintained their high standard of play after three of the four Olympians returned home.
Meanwhile, Club have also had a good season playing hard and defending well, but have fallen a little behind in goal scoring effectiveness.
Top Goal Scorers
Khalsa have three players in the competition’s top ten goal scorers: Ahmed Ewis, Inderpal Singh and Harry Bal, with a total goal tally of 43 goals.
With games still remaining to be played by Shaheen-A and Valley-A, the Premier Division top goal scorer table is again headed by Ahmed Ewis of Khalsa with 26 goals. Valley’s Didier Demaret is in second place with 17 and Arif Ali of Shaheen is currently lying in third with 13. Four players have 9 goals: Angus Cameron (HKFC-A), Inderpal Singh (Khalsa), and Baljit Singh and Satwinder Singh both of SSSC-A.
Premier Division (B) matches
HKFC-B won their match against SSSC-B 5-1 to confirm their standing at the top of Premier Division (B) giving them a credible 6th place overall in the standings. Pak-A beat KNS-A 8-5 to move them into 7th position one place above KNS.
Final Matches
Two other Premier Division league matches, Shaheen-A against SSSC-A and Elite-A against KCC-A, will be played on Mar 30. No date has yet been set for the postponed Valley-A vs Shaheen-A match.
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