The women also tasted some success. They had a 1-1 draw with the Mavericks but won the shootout 3-1 to pick up two valuable competition points.
Alpiners men’s captain Sam Lane was happy enough with the effort.
‘‘It took a wee while for us to get into it today,’’ he told the commentary team.
‘‘The Mavericks played a pretty good game and made us think a little bit harder about what we are trying to achieve.
‘‘But we’ll take the four points.’’
All five goals in the game were scored in the third quarter.
The Alpiners left quite a few goals out on the park.
Lane had a one-on-one with the goalie in the first quarter but slapped his shot into the boot of Matthew Ruetsch, who had an outstanding game in goal for the visitors.
The Alpiners enjoyed the bulk of possession in the second period but were denied by Ruetsch three times in a couple of seconds.
He deflected a drag flick and managed to get in the way of two more shots from the rebound.
That heroic effort ensured the visitors went into the halftime break level on 0-0.
George Baker broke the deadlock with a nice run along and baseline and he slotted the ball in on the near side.
He popped the conversion in to give the Alpiners a 2-0 lead.
That goal came about through the weight of possession, really. The Alpiners were firmly in control and had stayed patient.
But against the run of play, Luke Aldred dragged in a penalty corner to cut the deficit.
The Alpiners pounced on a mistake in the midfield and Nick Findlay flicked it in.
Then Lane scored from a penalty corner to open up a 4-1 lead with a quarter remaining.
The Mavericks women called in veteran midfielder Sam Childs for the clash.
She boosted their lineup, but the home side struck first from a penalty corner.
Issy Story swatted in a deflection.
The Alpiners stitched together some promising plays and continued to build pressure.
A couple of dangerous crosses whizzed past the goal mouth and a shot was parried away by Mavericks goalie Brodie Cochrane.
The Alpiners should have been ahead by plenty at halftime but they could not nail any of their five penalty corner opportunities in the second quarter.
The Mavericks had no such issues. Isabella Gill drilled in a penalty quarter late in the period to level the score at the break.
The visitors had the better of the third period but were unable to add to the score.
Alpiners defender Millie Calder had a cracking shot booted away midway through the fourth corner, and striker Mezzy Surridge had her shot blocked as well.
Cochrane was just too good again.
But Alpiners goalie Kirsty Nation produced the save of the game. She thrust out her left boot and kicked away a shot from Deanna Ritchie in the final seconds of the game.
The match went to a shootout and home team prevailed 3-1.
In the other games, the Falcons men’s and women’s side both had shootout wins against the Tridents in Napier
