Newcastle Vikings Handball Club welcomed junior teams from north of the border as we hosted a round of the Scottish league tournament matches for the 08/09 age group on Sunday at the Benfield Centre for Sporting Excellence.
The boys competition saw Newcastle’s under-15 team taking on Glasgow’s Kelvinside Academy and Cumbernauld-based club Tryst 77 in three competitive matches of 2 x 15 minutes. Their opening match against Kelvinside was a real goals feast as the Vikings never gave up and fought their way back to level the scores late on and set up a tense finale, led by eight goals from centre Oliver Cass and four each from left-half George Archer and right-winger Zavi Racey, only for the Glaswegians to just edge it 19-20.
Their second match was also full of end-to-end goalscoring action, with line-player Brendan Fisher and winger Racey scoring five goals apiece for the Vikings, but Tryst held off the home side to take a 23-15 win. Kelvinside then defeated Tryst 16-9 in the other boys match to win the day’s overall competition, with Tryst in second place ahead of Newcastle.
The girls’ 20-minute matches were a series of similarly fast and furious close encounters between Kelvinside, Tryst, East Kilbride’s EK82 and a mixed team of girls and younger boys from those three clubs and Newcastle Vikings. EK82 narrowly won 9-8 against Tryst, and Kelvinside defeated the mixed team 8-4 in the opening games.
There were then three tight draws, 7-7 between Kelvinside and EK82, 6-6 between Tryst and the mixed team, and 4-4 between Tryst and Kelvinside. Both Vikings girls Edda Stenbom-Moss and Elsa Watson got themselves on the scoresheet with a goal each in the final match of the day, but EK82’s 14-12 victory over the mixed team saw the East Kilbride team ultimately take the tournament honours unbeaten, with Kelvinside also going undefeated in second place, Tryst third and the mixed team in fourth.
Newcastle Vikings boys: Joseph Meachery (GK), Charlie Pickett (2 goals), Brendan Fisher (6), Oliver Cass (10), Oliver Rasmussen, Zac Barbieri (3), George Archer (4), Zavi Racey (9).