The women’s Hoofdklasse regular season top spot will go down to the wire after EHL champions Den Bosch fell to a home defeat at the hands of hdm.
Erica Sanders profited from a successful high press to pop in the first goal and Pien van Nes’s hight drag-flick into the top right corner had hdm 2-0 up.
Den Bosch got one back via Frédérique Matla’s powerful corner shot, her 18th goal of the season, before half-time to get right back into the game.
But the Brabant club was unable to break through again and they were unable to back up Thursday night’s 1-0 win over AH&BC Amsterdam.
Amsterdam, as a result, were able to bounce back in style with a 4-1 win at Oranje-Rood with Michelle Fillet scoring twice, adding to an early goal from Ilse Kappelle and Joy Haarman’s second half tip-in.
They now have a three-point lead over Den Bosch who have a game in hand which will be played next Saturday against third placed SCHC. SCHC and hdm are mathematically assured of a place in the top four.
In the men’s Tulp Hoofdklasse, HC Bloemendaal confirmed they will win the regular season following a 6-3 win over AH&BC Amsterdam on Sunday.
Thursday saw Bloemendaal crucially beat SV Kampong 2-1 with Tom Hiebendaal’s last minute goal which built an eight-point lead with three games to go.
And they maintained that with the win over Amsterdam with goals from Yannick van der Drift, Sam Figge and Thierry Brinkman making it 3-0 at half-time. Brinkman and van der Drift both got their second goals to make it 5-0 before Amsterdam rallied with three late goals.
Kampong won 3-1 at Oranje-Rood to pretty much confirm they will finish in second place while Rotterdam got an important point against Pinoké to stay in third place.
Niklas Wellen and Alex Hendrickx combined to put Pinoké 2-1 up but Rotterdam replied via Tristan Algera for 2-2 from a corner. It gives them Rotterdam a five-point buffer over fifth placed Pinoké with an extra game still to play.
Den Bosch moved into four place with a 2-0 win over bottom side Almere.