Hampstead & Westminster took the final play-off place in the Men’s Hockey League Premier Division with Matt Guise Brown’s hat-trick helping them beat Canterbury 5-3 on Sunday.
Canterbury needed a win to escape automatic relegation. Sam Barrett, Christian Schellinger and James Oates put them into a 3-1 lead at half time with Guise Brown scoring for Hampstead.
But Hampstead hit back with second half goals from Will Calnan, Sam French and two more from Guise Brown.
Sevenoaks already knew their best-case scenario would be relegation play-offs and that proved to be the case after Ashley Jackson’s hat-trick saw them beaten 6-1 by East Grinstead. Tony Wilson scored a brace and Simon Faulkner notched Grinstead’s other with Brandon Gibbs on target for Sevenoaks.
Peter Flanagan scored a late leveller for Brooklands MU as they drew 2-2 with Holcombe. David Flanagan scored the other for Brooklands with Matthew Symonds and Glenn Eyers slotting home for Holcombe.
Hampstead & Westminster beat strugglers Sevenoaks 10-2 in the Men’s Premier Division on Saturday.
Hampstead & Westminster knew they had to make up a big goal difference to compete with their rivals and they responded well, scoring ten times to give themselves a realistic chance of making the play-offs assuming other results go their way on Sunday.
Sam French led the scoring with four goals while Will Calnan hit a double with Matt Guise Brown, Michael Watt, Kwan Browne and Stephen Dowds scored their other goals.
Brandon Gibbs and Tom Chandler scored the consolations for Sevenoaks who were destined to finish in the bottom two.
Earlier in the week, other sides in the Premier Division caught up with games postponed after the recent snowfall.
Wimbledon galvanised their play-off position with a 4-0 win over Sevenoaks on Wednesday with Simon Mantell’s brace sandwiched between goals from Ben Arnold and Ben Roe.
On Tuesday, East Grinstead beat Canterbury 5-1 and on Friday evening, Nick Bandurak was the star of the show as he netted five goals as Holcombe beat Canterbury 8-0.