Newbies Agenga Mixed dare champs Sinyolo

Migori County hockey champions Agenga Mixed Secondary School players. [Washington Onyango, Kisumu]

Migori County hockey champions Agenga Secondary School have warning warned that they will not be easy pushovers ahead of the Nyanza Region games set to kick off Thursday afternoon.

The newbies, who dethroned Dede Girls to be crowned champions during their first attempt in playing hockey, have been pooled alongside Andigo from Homa Bay in Group A of the regional games and head coach Aloice Owino is confident of doing better, one more time.

The former Sinyolo Girls hockey coach, who won five-East African titles with the Kisumu County champions, said his target this year is to test the girls at the regional finals rather than compete for the title, but they will not allow teams to underrate them.

Owino, who introduced hockey after transferring to Agenga last year, said they are far from getting to the levels of Sinyolo and Nyamira Girls, but they will beat them, if they don't play according to their standards.

"We are a young team that has less than a year's experience of playing hockey and to reach regional finals shows how much the girls are determined to not only learn a new sport, but also compete with the best," he said

"I did not expect them to reach this far and again, we are not looking to get to the nationals but play good hockey as we prepare for next year. However, if the big teams underrate us, we will not forgive them because we will beat them and get to the nationals," said Owino.

Agenga thrashed Mabera Girls 3-0 to win their maiden Migori title and qualify for the regional games.

Owino is credited for Sinyolo's East Africa success when they won the title five times in a row in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Sinyolo are in Group B that also has Siaya champions Nyamira Girls and Amaiko from Kisii.