Thrilling way for Hellenic to win Cup

JESS WEBSTER

April 20th, 2010

THE much anticipated pre-season President's Cup grand final re-match between Hellenic and Olympic lived up to expectations at the weekend.

And in a tight match it was Hellenic who held off Olympic for a one goal win.

Hellenic scored the first three goals of the match before Olympic found their game, but it wasn't enough as Hellenic won 3-2.

Yvonne Koukouvas kicked off proceedings with her first goal midway through the first half and followed it up with a brilliant penalty goal from outside the box that curled in over the goalie's head.

Hellenic were regularly breaking through Olympic's defence and Laura Williams took advantage to put her side three goals clear.

It was left to Nicky Cotis to stem the onslaught and showed she is equal to the task with an identical penalty shot like Koukouvas' to register her side's first goal.

A second from Cotis late in the half got Olympic to within a goal and they almost drew level, but a penalty shot to Cotis hit the crossbar.

Despite Olympic pressing in the second half Hellenic's defence stood tall, and neither side scored in the second half.

Hellenic player-coach Leonora Billias was pleased the game plan came to fruition during the match.

"That was the plan - to try and get a few up and then sit back and defend because we had five players out, some experienced players so we had a young bench and we knew that we had to try and score early and then hopefully defend," she said.

"We got sloppy (when Olympic came back), we were moving out of position and panicking and I said to the girls at half-time to come back out and maintain our composure and get back into shape."
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/04/20/140981_ntsport.html