Saturday and Sunday the first final matches in the battle for the national title are on the menu. Den Bosch’s women are chasing their third top prize this season, while Amsterdam’s men are looking to become national champions for the first time since 2012. We look ahead to the first two blistering final days with six facts.
SCHC – Den Bosch
1️⃣ Goal scoring machines
SCHC and Den Bosch are the only two women’s teams this season that managed to score at least 100 goals in all competitions. Trijntje Beljaars scored the Bilthoven players’ 100th goal last Sunday against Pinoké (1-1). At Den Bosch, Teuntje de Wit’s 2-0 in the 3-0 win over Amsterdam constituted the anniversary goal.
Small nuance difference: SCHC’s goal average is higher than Den Bosch’s. Coach Gilles van Hesteren’s team needed 29 official games to reach 100, while the Bosch players have already played 35 official games this season.
Trijntje Beljaars cheers after the equalizer in the second semifinal duel with Pinoké. Photo: Rob Römer.
2️⃣ Matla in eternal top three
Den Bosch attacker Frédérique Matla has already scored 20 goals in the playoffs in her career. With that number, she is now shared third on the all-time playoff top scorer list, together with Ageeth Boomgaardt. Only Maartje Paumen (36 goals) and Mijntje Donners (28) scored more often in the nacompetition for the title.
Last season, Matla scored six goals in one playoff game, equaling the record held by Kim Lammers (Laren), Frederieke Grijpma (Amsterdam) and Mijntje Donners (Den Bosch).
Matla on the ball in the semifinals against Amsterdam. Photo: Bart Scheulderman.
3️⃣ Van den Heuvel and Jip Dicke life-threatening
At SCHC this season, 43 of the eighty goals in the regular season came from field play, more than any other team. Maud van den Heuvel and Jip Dicke have been the two most dangerous attackers on Dutch fields in recent months, with twelve and eleven field goals, respectively. At Den Bosch, right attacker Joosje Burg made the most field goals (ten).
Maud van den Heuvel, already good for seventeen goals in all competitions this season. Photo: Bart Scheulderman.
Kampong – Amsterdam
1️⃣ Burkhardt guarantee for goals
Boris Burkhardt has emerged as a true goal scoring machine in Amsterdam’s main squad in recent years. Since the start of season 2022-2023, the 28-year-old striker accounted for 65 goals in the regular big league, a number surpassed in that particular period only by Rotterdam attacker Jeroen Hertzberger (83) and Kampong’s Jip Janssen (82). In the past three seasons, Burkhardt scored 28 field goals and shot 33 times from penalty corners. Furthermore, he utilized a penalty ball four times.
Amsterdam goalie Boris Burkhardt. Photo: Bart Scheulderman
2️⃣ Jip Janssen’s first at Kampong
With six goals in two games, Kampong defender Jip Janssen played an absolute leading role in the semifinal against Bloemendaal. Never before had a Kampong player been so highly successful in the first two games of the playoffs, or at all in one complete edition of the nacompetition for the title. In season 2003-2004, Xavier Reckinger was the last to score at least six goals in the semifinals: the Belgian did so in the service of Oranje Zwart.
Janssen is still three goals away from the goal record of Remco van Wijk. He scored nine goals in five games for Bloemendaal in the playoffs of the 1998-1999 season, an unmatched performance.
3️⃣ Four mutual final games
Kampong and Amsterdam are facing each other in a final match for the fifth time. Three times before that happened in the playoffs of the 2017-2018 season (with Kampong as the eventual winner in a best-of-three) and once in the Euro Hockey League. In the 2015-2016 season, Kampong won that European friendly in Barcelona 2-0 through goals by Quirijn Caspers and Constantijn Jonker. Current Kampong players Lars Balk, Jip Janssen, Sander de Wijn, Boet Phijffer and David Harte were also in attendance at the time. So was Robbert Kemperman, but he now plays for Amsterdam.
by Hockey.nl
