•The loss of their former captain Zeddy Zawadi to Amira Sailors has also been a blow to the team..
•Owoka hopes the team's new signings will bring fresh hope for the side.
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Wolverines women’s hockey team head coach Dennis Owoka is banking on new signings to escape relegation amid their current struggles.
The team lost 1-0 to host USIU ‘A’ 1-0 in their league league outing this season. Owoka said while the players are gradually improving, team cohesion is still lacking.
“We are still bonding. We are yet to gel since we are still new to the new season,” Owoka noted.
He said their biggest challenge is the lack of consistent training sessions.
“Our major undoing is that we do not train together. That notwithstanding, our target is to stay within the league and avoid relegation by all means,” he emphasised.
He said he would hate to see a repeat of last season’s poor performance. “We performed so poorly last season and I would not want to see a repeat of the same.”
Owoka hopes the team’s new signings will bring fresh hope for the side.
“Our new signings are goalkeeper Charity Nelima and Nancy Nyaibet, a middle/forward defender who is a top player. Another one is the 21-year-old captain Cess Achieng,” he said.
“At 19 years old, Nelima is quite young but rising very fast,” he added.
Despite dropping points early in the season, Owoka remains optimistic. “We want to stay in contention despite having dropped enough points already,” he stated.
However, he acknowledged that there is still work to be done, particularly in addressing the team’s lack of cohesion due to scattered training.
“Our players are scattered and train under different setups. We have some training in Eldoret while two others are in JKUAT. This becomes quite a challenge when it comes to gelling,” Owoka explained.
To combat some of the issues, the coach said all players will train together twice a month.
“We have introduced a twice-monthly training session where everybody comes in to train as one pack,” Owoka shared.
The loss of their former captain Zeddy Zawadi to Amira Sailors has also been a blow to the team.
Owoka, who previously coached the Butali Sugar Warriors, cited a lack of sponsorship and facilities as some of the biggest drawbacks in hockey.