
At the beginning of our season, Dumbleyung were heavily reliant on our up and coming stars with three Year Two’s and four Year Three’s taking to the field. We had Lachlan Hesse missing the first six games with a broken hand with Evelyn Bennett our only Year Six.
Credit goes to our young players who played some amazing first games. We had a few big losses but never did we give up, and with each game we improved confidence in ourselves and each other.
Lachlan coming back from injury to pick up Lake Grace local Trenton Medlan. Mid way through the season we began to play some very good hockey, linking our younger players with support and encouragement of our senior players. This was by no means a simple task, for some of our senior players have only been playing a couple of years themselves, and had some big shoes to fill.
Week to week we sometimes had the bare eleven and other weeks we had a full bench. Thank you to our junior players who stepped up and played on field for am entire game one week, and other weeks spent time on the bench. Credit to players and parents for your commitment to mid-week training and Saturday morning games.
The Most Valuable Player Awards for our 2017 season go to Evelyn Bennett and Lachlan Hesse. Evelyn was the quiet achiever on the field, holding things steady and encouraging the players around her to never give up. Evelyn started the season as our fullback giving us great hockey skills across our back line. Congratulations Evelyn on a wonderful year, and remember you can play across the field from Low Fullback, through the Halfback line, to an awesome Inner and developing to be an exciting Striker.
Lachlan was jumping out of his skin by the time he could train and play again. His competitiveness and desire to score goals became overwhelming and his strength proved to be challenging. Lachlan and Coach persevered, and credit to Lachlan as he developed his skills and went on to share this with other players. Congratulations Lachlan, we look forward to seeing you grow those skills next season and keep scoring great goals.
Our Most Consistent Award went to Sydnee Wright. Sydnee commenced the season quietly, demonstrating flares of brilliance albeit with some hesitation on the field. It was time for the Coach to step in and demand her commitment to the ball, to the game and to her coach. Sydnee has an incredible work ethic both at training and at games. It was exciting to watch, thank you Sydnee.
After our last game we had our Hockey Wind-Up at the Dumbleyung District Club. Thank you to Heather Wright for being this year’s Manager and organising the event. Thank you to Dale Cronin and Drew Bartram for helping on the sideline on game days.
Many thanks to all parents for your support throughout the year, enjoy your hockey free Saturdays until next year!
Article by C.Bairtstow