Cambridge’s first team secured a vital Northern League win while the club’s Waikato Division 2 team maintained their push for divisional honours with a big win.
Here’s how our teams fared at the weekend (August 1-2):
Lotto NRFL second division
Cambridge 3 Northland 2
Cambridge beat Northland 3-2 in a nerve-jangling but entertaining match at John Kerkhof Park.
The win lifted the Reds clear of the division’s relegation zone and consigned Northland to bottom spot.
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Cambridge Reserves 0 Northland Reserves 3
Cambridge Reserves lost 3-0 to Northland Reserves.
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Matchday magazine
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WaiBOP Championship
Papamoa 4 Cambridge 3
Cambridge lost a seven-goal thriller 4-3 at Papamoa to dent their hopes of catching the leading pack in the competition.
Cambridge fought back from 0-2 down to tie the game up at 3-3, only to concede the deciding goal in the second half.
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Waikato Senior Men’s
Waikato Division Two: Waikato Unicol 1, Cambridge 8
Title contenders Cambridge maintained their strong form with an 8-1 win at Waikato Unicol.
Cambridge started the stronger and went 3-0 up in the first 20 minutes, thanks to goals from Thomas Gifford, Patrick Woodlock and Peter Buesnel.
After turning round at 3-0, Cambridge took the game to Unicol, adding goals from Jason Szabo, Thomas Gifford, Lachie Cotton and Zak Petropoulos who got a double.
Stand-in coaches Nathan Claridge and Peter Buesnel were happy with the result, in the absence of coach Chris Petropoulos who was away on a midwinter break. Zak Petropoulos was the Player of the Day.
Next week, Cambridge take on fourth-placed Claudelands Rovers, away.
Waikato Division 5: Cambridge D2s 1 Northern United Numpties 2
Cambridge D2s again played well only to lose in a close encounter with Northern United Numpties.
The Hamilton side took a first half lead but Cambridge levelled through a Cole van den Beuken penalty to send the teams into half-time at 1-1.
In the second half, Northern United were awarded a penalty which they converted to take all three points.
Cambridge had their chances – Chris Hill (see main photo) hit the post twice – but the results don’t seem to go their way.
Player of the Day was goalkeeper Louis Schott.
Waikato Division 5: Tokoroa Rezzienation 3 Cambridge D1 0 (default)
The D1s defaulted their fixture at Tokoroa due to the unavailability of players.
Women’s Waikato Division 2
Cambridge moved into third place with a comfortable 5-0 win against mid-table Melville United.
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Sunday – Youth teams
Cambridge U-14s lost 4-0 at home to Papamoa in the WaiBOP Federation Y-League.
Going into the game, Cambridge and Papamoa were tied on points and goal difference for second spot in the competition.
However, the Bay side slipped away to a 3-0 half-time lead and then added a fourth late in the game.
Cambridge U-12s drew 2-2 at home to Melville United in the WaiBOP Federation J-League.
Melville took the lead midway through the first half and the sides turned around with the visitors ahead 1-0.
In the second half, Cambridge worked themselves into the game and Jaxson Makgill set up Jesse Macdonald whose powerful shot levelled the score.
With 10 minutes left, Cambridge went 2-1 up thanks to Cameron Spence who struck a left footer into the roof of the net.
As time wound down, Melville found an equaliser with two minutes left to play.
