Halfway through the first half of the first playoff duel with Oranje-Rood, Marloes Keetels gave her team a 0-1 lead through a Penalty Corner variant, followed by a lot of protest from the home team Oranje Rood towards Umpires Caroline Brunekreef and Laurens Hendrikx.
In the seventeenth minute, Maartje Paumen is poised at the top of the D for a penalty corner, the eighth of the afternoon, Den Bosch decided to play a variant. The captain was pushed by Margot van Geffen, causing her to miss hit the ball. Luckily for Den Bosch the ball went straight to Marloes Keetels who hit it sharply past the keeper, above the backboard. Umpire Hendrikx approves awards the goal even after consulting with colleague Brunekreef amid loud protests from Oranje-Rood.
Den Bosch went on to win 0-2 and secure the upper hand in the first semi final of the playoffs. An unhappy Jill Boon and captain Daphne van der Velden spoke after the final whistle, “We are firmly convinced that they should not count”, Van der Velden told later. “The ball must hit the backboard. We also train on this corner, everybody knows that a hit must hit the board“.
Brunekreef and Hendrikx interpreted Paumen’s ball during the match as the first shot at the goal, leaving Keetels free to aim her shot over the backboard. “The umpire just told me that balls within three meters of the goal are counted as a shot on the goal”, Van der Velden explains. “We were not aware of that. It would be nice if such rules could be better communicated. Perhaps that happened, but we did not get it. I do not know where that’s wrong” she continued.
After reviewing the images, umpire Hendrikx returns to his first explanation. “The images show that Paumen’s hit was not within three meters from the goal.” So this would not count as a first shot. However, “It is also possible to see how Keetels takes the ball and then hits it in one movement towards the goal, so It was actually a kind of push and allowed to go high”.
Hockey NL
