By MOSES CHIMFWEMBE –
New Zealand 8 Zambia 2 (Boys)
ZAMBIA commenced her medal quest at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics Games in China on a disappointing note after both the girls’ and boys’ teams suffered heavy defeats in their opening matches.
The boys’ Hockey 5s team opened their Pool B campaign with a humiliating defeat at the hands of an impressive New Zealand side. The Zambians fell behind through a Hayden Phillips goal on four minutes before Robbie Cappizzi doubled the lead three minutes later.
Phillips scored his second of the game in the ninth minute but Blessing Lowole reduced Zambia’s deficit with an 11th minute strike. David Brydon restored New Zealand’s lead in the 13th minute to force the game 4-1 into the second period.
Zambia bounced back with vigor after restart, with Lombe Bwalya pulling one back in the 18th minute to make 4-2 but Aidan Sarikaya struck on 23 minutes for New Zealand and Dominic Newman added two goals in the 25th and 32nd minutes and Phillips completed a hat trick three minutes later.
In another pool B game, Pakistan recorded a 6-2 win over Mexico. Zambia’s next game is today against Germany.
China 8 Zambia 0 (Girls)
The girls’ team, who have been pitted in Pool B together with China, New Zealand, Uruguay and Germany, were trounced in their opening game by the hosts.
Xindan Zhang scored three goals to inspire China to a comfortable victory over the Zambians after opening the scoring in the third minute before adding another on 15 minutes of the first period.
Jinrong Zhang put China 3-0 up two minutes after restart and Xindan powered in her third goal in the 24th minute while Tu Yidan made a comeback impossible for the Zambians when she made it 5-0 on 31 minutes.
The hosts concluded a positive start to the competition when they scored three times in two minutes through Cheng Yang, who grabbed a 34th minute goal, with Zhang Lijia putting the ball behind the net a minute later and Zhong Jiaqi completed the thrashing 20 seconds later.
The other Pool B game saw Germany beat Uruguay 6-2. The girls’ team faces New Zealand today before wrapping up with Uruguay.
