On Friday 6th May, the Homebush Boys High School Opens Futsal team woke up nice and early to get to school by 7:30am to journey to Bankstown Basketball Stadium for the 2022 regional futsal competition. These students have been working hard for this competition by giving up some of their lunchtimes to train in the new gym and prepare. For a majority of the team this was not their first futsal competition, so they were quite familiar with the environment and structure of the tournament. So off we went in the HBHS school bus for an exciting day of Futsal!
First up was Belmore Boys who were an extremely competitive school to face. Our boys took an early two goal advantage before letting that slip; however, the boys closed the game off and won the first of the day 4-2. After a well-deserved break and bye fixture, we faced All Saints Grammar where our boys demonstrated a great showing of futsal skills and comfortably won 3-1. However, our first real challenge came at the hands of Sydney Secondary Blackwattle Bay who took an early 2-0 lead against us. The boys showed great heart and rallied back to 2-2. With all being said and done and through some great high pressing tactics, we won a corner and with the final kick of the game the ball deflected into the goal ending with another victory and remaining undefeated at 3-2. Finally, was the final group fixture and this was up against Mitchell HS which was our toughest game yet. It was a back-and-forth affair which showed our teams resilience in defence. This game ended 2-2 and HBHS finished second in the group behind Mitchell HS due to goal difference.
Homebush saved their best futsal game for the final's rounds. The quarter final was against Innaburra HS. Homebush dominated the possession of the game by not giving much to our opposition. The final score ended 3-0 in a well-deserved victory. At this stage there was a lot of belief in the possibility of making it to the grand final and qualifying for the state championship. Our semi-final opposition was St Spyridon who had a large group of students competing in the tournament in both the male and female competitions. The boys knew they felt like the away team with a large group of students cheering for the opposing team. Nevertheless, with sheer discipline and determination the boys completely dominated the game by frustrating the opposing team through fantastic shape and structure. Homebush played fantastic counter attacks and broke down the opposition's defence. The game ended 4-0 and at this stage the boys were brimming with delight at the fact they had made their first grand final at a regional level for many years.
The grand final game was against a tough Kogarah HS team who were well drilled with some fantastic players. Homebush started the game with a bit of fatigue as Kogarah were straight on the attack to start with and took a quick 2-0 lead due to some lapses in defence. Half time came around and the boys knew that if they wanted to win, they had to turn some things around. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and we conceded again making it 3-0 and a tough task at hand. To the credit of the students, they did not give up and relentlessly attacked the Kogarah goal with three chances including hitting the post and two goal line clearances from some great defence. This made the task difficult, but they did not give up and grabbed one back and made it 3-1. A few more chances came in front of Homebush but we were not able to capitalise. The game ended 3-1. The boys were in high spirits and elated with their overall performance of going undefeated the whole day until the very end. The students reflected on the performance in the grand final and are now ready to put that past them and stamp their authority at the state championships which are held at Hawkesbury PCYC.
Shoutout to the students!
