HOCKEY - Hikurangi sneak home on final whistle

Hikurangi sent out a warning to the other semifinalists in the Northland premier women's hockey competition with a last-minute 3-2 victory over More FM Old Girls on Saturday.
The message was clear - forget the form books written during the season to date, we're now playing finals hockey.
Old Girls were expected to have the edge and indeed dominated the first quarter but were guilty of tapering off later in the spell and went to the halftime break trailing 0-2, thanks to a double from striker Michelle King.
Good work by playmaker Laura Douglas saw Old Girls get back into the match. Douglas' cross, a minute into the second spell, found Jesse Boyce who deflected the ball into Hikurangi's goal to narrow the deficit to one. Douglas then got behind Hikurangi's defence before linking up with Tania Currie, who drove the ball home from the edge of the circle.
A penalty corner awarded right on full time saw Hikurangi break the deadlock when Toni Mason's shot rebounded to Michelle Scott-Davidson, who scored from the edge of the circle.
Hikurangi coach Vicki Gribble said things were falling in to place for the team at the right end of the season.
"We've solidified all the things that we've started working on this year in the last quarter of the season and we're more consistent now we've pretty much got our game plan sussed," Gribble said.
The other two playoffs went according to plan, with top-ranked Maungakaramea posting a comfortable 8-0 win over Kamo High School, while Whangarei Girls High School beat United-Kawakawa 4-0.
In the final round-robin games of the men's premier competition, Currie Electrical Springfield and Maungakaramea played out an exciting 3-3 draw, while Mangapai warmed-up for next week's semifinals with a 4-1 defeat of Bream Bay on Friday evening.
Both matches were essentially dead rubbers with the places in next week's semifinals already decided.
• Springfield's David Dow scored the only first half goal but the strikers hit their straps later with the goals flowing almost to the whistle.