Black Sticks Women finish Indian series unbeaten

The Black Sticks Women have finished the six-test series with India with a 6-5 victory in the final match in Wellington tonight.

The win gave the home side a 5-0 series victory with Wednesday’s 2-2 draw the only blot on the Black Sticks copy book.

Up 2-0 early in the match, the Black Sticks let the Indians back into the game to lead 3-2 at halftime. Despite regaining the lead and powering to a 6-3 lead they nearly let that slip away again late in the second spell.

Head coach Mark Hager said he was disappointed with tonight’s patchy effort.

“We started well and then had a bad patch when the Indians had us under the pump. We got things going in the second half but nearly butchered it again at the end.”

“We were simply not making good decisions at times.”

Auckland’s Katie Glynn opened the scoring for the Kiwis and Canterbury’s Cassandra Reid made it two with her first international goal before the Indians replied with three goals to lead at the break.

Second half field goals to Canterbury’s Olivia Merry, Glynn and Northland’s Stacey Michelsen, as well as an own goal, gave the Black Sticks the 6-3 lead. Two late goals threatened the Black Sticks lead but the home side held on for the victory.

The next series for the Black Sticks is away to Argentina in February.

Result: New Zealand 6 (Katie Glynn 2, Stacey Michelsen, Olivia Merry, Cassandra Reid, own goal) India 5. HT: 3-2 India.