The Melton Hockey men’s sides have experienced their best weekend of the season thanks to comprehensive wins in the Hockey Victoria Vic League.
The Mustangs have endured a tough season across the board, so Saturday’s results are a bright spark for the playing group.
The Vic League 3 team had a 7-0 win against Swinburne, with Lachie Vallance scoring a hat-trick.
Stephen Lawrence scored twice and Tom McMurrie scored the other goal.
The Melton reserves had a 4-1 win, also against Swinburne.
Scott McLaren scored twice, with Ben Hanley-Woodbridge and Hayden Lawrence the other goal-scorers.
Mustangs men’s coach Ryan Self was thrilled with the results.
It was just the second win of the season for both sides.
“We hadn’t played at home for a while and hadn’t had a full side, either,” he said. “Getting a couple of wins on the board makes things sweeter at the club.”
Self, who is also a senior player, took over the coaching role a couple of weeks ago when McLaren had to step down due to other commitments.
Senior captain Anthony Arnold is also helping out with the coaching.
“There was a bit of a change of coaches, which isn’t ideal,” Self said. “Scott had to walk away from the role.
“I’ve played a lot of sport and coached a few junior sides. I haven’t taken on a senior coaching role before, but it’s not something I can’t handle. I was a captain for a while and I’ve had to run training sessions before.”
Self said that with the change of coaching arrangements, the players had stepped up and started to take more responsibility.
The win moves the Mustangs’ senior side to fourth on the ladder. The reserves side is fifth, a game outside the top four.
Self is hoping confidence from Saturday’s wins will be the launching pad for the second half of the season and the chase for finals berths.
“The players have been good and we haven’t taken a step back,” he said.
“Hopefully, we can finish fourth and do what we did last year when we finished fourth and won a preliminary final and made the grand final.”
While it was a good day for the men’s senior and reserves teams, that wasn’t the case for the other senior sides.
The women’s Vic League 2 side lost to PEGS 7-0, while the reserves lost 4-0, also to PEGS.
Both women’s sides remain without a win.
The men’s Metro B north-west team lost to United Khalsa 2-1. McLaren was the Mustangs goal-scorer.
In the juniors, the under-12s, under-14s and under-16s all had wins.
The under-10 girls and under-10 mixed teams had draws.
