Mallon Levels It at the Death, Then Pride Win the Shootout 3-1 Over Canberra Chill

Sixty minutes gone, 3-1 down, and the game was gone. Then Toby Mallon rewrote it.

NSW Pride beat Canberra Chill in a shootout at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday, 3-1 on shootouts after a 3-3 draw, and the whole thing turned on the last minute of normal time. Mallon scored a field goal to make it 3-2, then beat the keeper in the one-on-one conversion to level it at 3-3. Two goals, one minute, and a game Canberra thought they’d won was suddenly going to a shootout.

The shootout itself was one-way traffic. Tim Brand scored, Nathan Czinner scored, Blake Govers scored. Three from three. Canberra managed one, from Tom Craig, and the other three attempts were all saved. That’s the game.

Govers had opened the scoring in the 19th minute with a penalty corner, his fifth goal in five games this season and the 47th of his Hockey One career. He’s scored in every Pride game this year, and for a while it looked like another routine afternoon for the home side. Canberra had other ideas. Ben Staines levelled from a corner a minute later, and then Dylan Brick took the game away from the Pride with a penalty stroke in the 30th minute and another corner five minutes after that. 3-1 at three-quarter time, and the Chill were 15 minutes from a huge away win.

They’d come to Sydney wanting a response. HC Melbourne put ten past them last Friday, and this was supposed to be the proof that meant nothing. For 45 minutes it was. They were organised, they were ruthless from set pieces, and they had the Pride chasing the game. Then Mallon happened.

For Canberra, this one will sting for a while. They did nearly everything right and still go home with one point instead of three. The shootout loss leaves them on ten points, with the Pride moving to eleven, and both sides still well in the finals race behind an HC Melbourne team that hasn’t lost yet.

Both Pride sides won on the day. The women beat the Chill 2-0 in the early game, with Abby Wilson and Amalia Patterson scoring a minute apart. The men needed a miracle and a shootout to match them, but they got there in the end.

Next up for the Pride is the hardest trip in the league: both teams travel to Melbourne on Friday night to face HC Melbourne, the women at 6:30pm and the men at 8:15pm AEDT.