Last year there was great joy after promotion to the big league, and on Saturday the Bloemendaal men could not believe their luck again. After a true thriller against Gooische (5-4 win), the Mussen secured participation in the playoffs for the national title. In Sportcampus Zuiderpark in The Hague, Wiegert Schut played the leading role with four goals. ‘I knew this team had a lot to offer.’
His cheeks are still red from the effort when we speak to Wiegert Schut fifteen minutes after the win over Gooische. He plops down on a wooden bench and lets a sigh escape his lips. ‘What a wonderful stunt this was. We had to win both our games today, assuming that our rival Pinoké would also win twice. The win over Gooische should have been a little less tight than it was, haha. But we pulled it off.
The duel between Gooische and Bloemendaal formed a mouth-watering dessert on the final day in the men’s regular competition, a spectacle that raised the heart rate of the hundreds of spectators considerably. And that brought out the best in seeding enthusiast Wiegert Schut.
Wiegert Schut gets rid of an opponent in the game with Gooische. Photo: Willem Vernes
Pinoké virtual second
More about that in a moment. First the starting situation: at the beginning of the day three teams in pool A still had a chance to go to the playoffs in the wake of leader HDM: Bloemendaal was in pole position (fourteen points), closely followed by Pinoké and Gooische (both thirteen points). Bloemendaal started with a 5-2 win over HDM, while Pinoké first sidelined HGC (8-2) and then also dominated Gooische (7-3).
By the time Bloemendaal began warming up for the game with the now hopeless Gooische at 3:50 p.m., Pinoké was virtually in second place. That made the task for the Sparrows crystal clear: win to reach the semifinals. With any other result, Pinoké would join the last four.
Schut puts Bloemendaal into the lead against Gooische with a delicious seesaw. Photo: Willem Vernes
Weak first half
The spectators in the well-filled Hall B of the Sportcampus, including the complete Pinoké selection and staff, initially saw a rather dull game of chess between the boards, in which the chances for Gooische and Bloemendaal could be counted on one hand. Schut had opened the scoring with a watched seesaw, after which Coen Merkx had repaired the damage for Gooische from a penalty corner.
‘I thought we were very weak in the first half,’ confessed Schut, who has been under contract to Bloemendaal for a year and a half but is only experiencing his first indoor season with the Mussen. ‘It was much too timid, while we had to play for the win. At halftime we said we had to step it up a notch. Then it became one of those typical chaos games where we almost alternated scoring. Then you stop thinking and go for it.
The second half of the cracker had a wonderful scoring sequence, in which Bloemendaal made up for two deficits through Jasper Brinkman (2-2) and Schut (3-3), took the lead (3-4, again Schut) and equalized again (4-4). With each Gooische goal, the cheering from the stands became more passionate, and that swelling sound came especially from the group of Pinoké players high up in the stands who increasingly believed in a favorable outcome for them. At first they were still relaxed and laid-back, but as the match progressed, excitement and hope drove them to the edge of their seats.
The players of Pinoké, for a moment the most fanatical fans of Gooische. Photo: Willem Vernes
Six against five
In the end, it was Schut who silenced Gooische’s occasional fans with his fourth goal of the afternoon. In a crowded circle, he effectively rounded off a seconds-long encirclement of the Gooische circle, pushing the ball past goalkeeper Jeroen Kerkmeer with pinpoint accuracy in a forest of players. This made the former national team international the man of the match: the 4-5 was no longer in danger in the last two minutes.
‘When we got the 3-2 after halftime via a penalty ball, we took off our goalie. Even though there were still six minutes to play. We just had to. Gooische played very compact field hockey and with five field players it was too difficult for us to get through. It was very similar to the earlier game in the pool that we played against them, which we lost 2-1. With six against five, it went better. We put in a lot of training hours and it paid off. We played incessantly from forehand to forehand, left to right, corner in, corner out and shift again. That shifting along becomes so heavy for an opponent at a certain point that holes are automatically created when sitting low. It’s inch work, but then you can score. We did a great job of that.
Schut in action against Gooische. Photo: Willem Vernes
Schut pauses for a moment. The seed lover in him enjoys these kinds of crazy matches. A rain of goals, an insane score sequence, the all-or-nothing factor. ‘That’s the fun part of this game. You can be two or three goals behind just before time and still win, without a goalie.’ And then the presence of the Pinoké players added an extra spicy ingredient. ‘Yes, they made a lot of noise, but it didn’t really bother us. Fortunately, there was no cheering when we were on the ball. They only cheered at Gooische’s goals. We would have done the same the other way around.’
Smile on the face
Looking back on the ten games of the regular league, Schut cannot help but be thickly satisfied with Bloemendaal’s performance. He is secretly surprised that the team, with young forces such as Gijs ter Braak, Tobias Bovelander, Jan van ‘t Land, Lars Leistra and goalkeeper Allard André de la Porte, was already performing so well, especially as a promoter from the Topklasse. Bloemendaal won six of the ten duels and suffered only two defeats. After pool winners HDM and Den Bosch, they scored the most goals of any team (48).
‘We took indoor field hockey very seriously,’ says Schut. ‘The enthusiasm was bursting from everyone right away. If you enjoy something and you put a lot of time into it, you can make great strides. We knew that as a promoted team it would be a hell of a job to maintain ourselves in this tough group. But I also knew that this team had a lot to offer if we could get real indoor field hockey into it, like I was used to in my earlier seasons at HDM. Together with a few others, I tried to grind as many patterns into the team as possible. It’s nice to see that everyone has picked up on that so well.’
‘Now may another week continue to build with each other,’ Schut continued. ‘Right now I don’t even know who we’re playing against next weekend, but that doesn’t matter either. We will do everything we can to win that semifinal. But mostly with a smile on our face.’
Bloemendaal’s men, semifinalists at the NK Zaal next Saturday. Photo: Willem Vernes
by Hockey.nl
