Canada finishes third in Pool A, faces China in quarterfinal at Hawke’s Bay Cup

Canada’s women’s field hockey team has finished in third place in Pool A after the completion of group play at the Hawke’s Bay Cup in New Zealand.

Canada’s place in Pool A was confirmed after the Canadians dropped their final pool stage match 4-0 to Australia on Tuesday.

The third place ranking means Canada will take on China, which finished second place in Pool B, in one of the tournament quarterfinals on April 7 at 12:15 local time (6:15pm PT/9:15pm PT on April 6 in Canada). The game will be streamed live at http://hockeynz.co.nz/video.

Australia, the world’s third ranked team, was hoping for a big win against Canada to take top spot in the pool. And the Aussies got off to a good start.

Two goals from penalty corners in the 9th and 14th minutes got them up 2-0 early. They added a field goal early in the second quarter looked off to the races. But Canada buckled down and – as they have all tournament – got stronger as the game progressed.

The Canadians managed to keep the Aussies off the scoreboard for the better part of the final three quarter, until they once again converted in the 56th minute.

The women will likely take positives in not allowing Australia to reach top spot in the pool and take confidence from that in to their net match.

GAME NOTES:

• Veteran forward Thea Culley played in her 150th international match for Canada, inching her closer to Laurelee Kopeck (163 matches played) for second on the all-time list
• Goalkeepers Kaitlyn Williams and Rowan Harris split duty in goal almost equally, with Harris coming in in the 36th minute
• Tuesday’s match was the first officially sanctioned match between the Canadian and Australian women since they faced off in group play at the 1992 Olympic Games when Australia won 2-0