USIU coach rallies charges to raise the tempo

The coach of the United States International University (USIU) men team Tom Olal  is upbeat his side can still finish second in the Kenya Hockey Union Men Premier League despite the recent slump in which they have failed to win in their last three matches.

The varsity side had drawn with Chase Sailors prior to last weekend where they were edged 1-0 by the runaway leaders Kenya Police on Saturday, before tasting a 2-0 defeat to Parklands Sports Club who are eighth on the log.

The loss left USIU fourth on the table with 38 points as the season enters the penultimate stage. Olal, bothered the recent slump in form, has rallied his troops to regroup before their next match against Butali.

“It was a bad weekend for us because we lost two matches which basically mean we lost six points and that is not good in a tight battle that we are in, therefore we must bounce back in our next match,” he said.

With the league title all but decided, the battle now shifts to second position with a total of four teams in  contention, a prospect Olal says they must win all their remaining matches if they want to be the runners up.

“We were hoping to win the league but it is now clear that Police are the runaway leaders, we are therefore reduced at aiming for position two for which four teams are capable of achieving. We must therefore win all our remaining matches to finish second,” Olal said.

On the other hand, USIU women team suffered a humiliating defeat as they were thrashed 6-0 by the unstoppable Telkom who are on course to claiming their 20^th title after they pulled 11 points clear at the summit of the league.

The loss was the second for USIU this season who remained second on the log with 34 points .This leaves them in a difficult mix as they are only four points ahead of Chase Amiras and Strathmore University who are third and fourth respectively.

Meanwhile, it was shared spoils at the bottom of the table as the clash between Multimedia University (MMU) women and their counterparts from the University of Nairobi (UoN) ended in a 1-1 draw on Saturday, before MMU registered a 3-1 win over Vikings.

This was the second draw for the struggling UoN who have not won in a single match this season with the other point they earned coming back six months ago.