It is almost impossible to imagine: since 2014 the women’s team of hockey club Den Bosch had not been a national champion in the hall. While on the field they seem unable to lose. Saturday evening it was finally time again, after an incredible escape. And that without almost all field internationals. “How much opponents will hate us so much.”
Maartje Krekelaar was there in 2014 and Saturday evening in Rotterdam. “I was eighteen then. At 26, I am now the grandmother of the team,” said the captain in Zuidtribune, the sports program of Omroep Brabant Radio.
She also had every reason to be happy. It was Krekelaar who helped her team to a 2-3 win over Hurley in the ultimate final phase. “We were 2-0 down almost the entire game. Yet I have always had faith in it. You have to keep it that way and keep on bluffing. Anything can happen in the room, it happens so quickly.”
“The fact that I make the winning one gave me such an incredibly beautiful feeling, that triggered such an explosion of emotions. indescribable. And it was already such a blistering finale. It says a lot about us that we won. We had to do without the field internationals. As a result, there was a very young team, but who do have the right Bossche blood flowing in their veins. Moreover, after the arrival of coach Marieke Dijkstra, we started doing things differently at the club. She is really an indoor guru and wanted to give more attention to indoor hockey.”
Dijkstra is the successor of Raoul Ehren, who said goodbye to the complex at the Oosterplas last summer after twelve years. The new trainer of the Bossche women became world champion in indoor hockey in 2015, with Vera Vorstenbosch, among others, who is now a board member of Top Hockey at Den Bosch.
Yet Dijkstra reacted remarkably coolly to winning the indoor hockey title, Krekelaar had also noticed. “For her, winning the semi-final against Pinoké was more important. Moreover, she believed in a happy ending. Before the game against Hurley, she expressed the expectation that we would win in the last seconds. And you’re going to make that winning one, her assistant added.” And so it happened and another opponent of Den Bosch had a frustration.
One of Hurley’s players who eventually had a bad evening was Lieke van Wijk from Udenhout, although she had still scored. Krekelaar: “I didn’t really talk to her afterwards, although she did come to congratulate us politely. But I can imagine she must have felt sick to death. Although proposals, that doesn’t happen to us very often.”
“But it will just feel very sour if you lose like that and then also from Den Bosch. I don’t think it’s weird that teams hate us. We will take any price.”
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