A Badd Connection (ABC) tried their best, but in the end it was not good enough to dethrone Du Badd Crew (DBC) as men’s champions of the Barbados Hockey Festival on Saturday night at Kensington Oval.
A large crowd was on hand to witness what turned out to be the best match of the day as DBC held on to defeat bitter arch-rivals ABC 3-2.
It was a bitter fight to the end with numerous short corners being given away throughout the match. DBC captain Aaron Forde put the defending champions ahead in the dying stages of the first quarter but ABC came storming back in the second quarter.
ABC’s Keron Taylor scored the equaliser in the 22nd minute of the match and came back just minutes later to score another in the 27th minute. DBC did not let this quick flurry of goals faze them as Kemar Bovell scored just seconds before the half-time whistle to even the scores 2-2.
Four minutes into the second half, Khodi Gibson found the back of the net to once again put the champions out front. Good defending from DBC in the dying stages of the match ensured that the scored remained 3-2 in their favour and they savoured victory for yet another year.
DBC captain Jamar Lashley said that even though they knew it was going to be a hard game, they expected to come out victorious.
“ABC were winners for four or five years and we were only first time winners last year. We have some really good youngsters who are in the senior national team and some who are in the national junior team so we had a strong belief that we would come out on top again this year,” said Lashley.
In the other finals played on Saturday, UWI defeated ABC 3-2 in the mixed final, All Stars won 2-1 over New York Islanders in the veterans final while ABC won the women’s title via a penalty shoot-out over Maple.
