High-riding SA hockey men crash to earth against US at World Cup

The SA men’s team suffered their first defeat of the Indoor Hockey World Cup in Pretoria on Tuesday when they went down 5-2 to the US after a lacklustre performance. 

Riding high after their 8-4 victory over the Czech Republic on Monday night, they were shot down by the Americans a little more than 12 hours later. 

Mustapha Cassiem nailed a penalty stroke in the opening minute, but the Americans hit back with a field goal through Marius Leser seconds later. 

He put them 2-1 up in the fifth minute, but when SA were awarded another penalty stroke at the start of the second quarter, it seemed Cassiem would level matters. US keeper Jonathan Klages saved his shot dropping to his right, blocking the ball with his hand a foot off the ground.

Suddenly Cassiem, with eight goals in the tournament, seemed mortal and the team looked vulnerable, failing to deliver the same energy they had displayed against the European outfit. 

Julius Ryan levelled matters soon afterwards, diving to deflect the ball into the goal, but after that SA were unable to build momentum. 

Stuart Kentwell put the US up 3-2, before Aki Kaeppeler and Pat Harris put the game beyond the reach of the home side.  

“Our turnaround [from Monday’s match] was a bit short, but that’s for everyone,” said captain Jethro Eustice.  “And maybe it was a bit of still on cloud nine from last night, a [game] we weren’t expecting to win ... maybe our mindset was not on it.”

SA, ranked 11th in the world, were not expected to beat the Czechs, No 5, but were looking to beat the US, 18th. Then again, the US beat the Czechs 4-3 on Sunday.  

“We created chances,” added Eustice. “We saw the man-of-the-match performance from their goalkeeper and if it wasn’t for him we probably would have won the game. Disappointed just on the energy, I think the energy wasn’t there as [it was] last night.”