It is with great pleasure and pride that I can announce that following our famous 7-1 victory yesterday v Richmond, the U16 Girls hockey side have qualified for the Regional Cluster phase of the English Hockey Cup!!!!!!
Here is a match report from Girl of the Match and hat-trick scorer Georgia Smith.
From the beginning we knew there was a lot riding on this game and that we had to win in order to get through to the next round of matches at regional level. The first half was tense but we mainly had the majority of possession. At half time we were two goals up I believe and confident that we could score more. I think that this was down to the encouraging team talk from whizz about stepping up the tempo and as a team we took this on board and we proved by the 7-1 win just how effective that choice we made was.
The Mids were working hard to hold possession and passing was out wide to the side allowing a fast paced attack on their defence, giving us many goal scoring opportunities which eventually crumbled their defence line. The defence line of Laura, Sophie, Olivia and Ash were quick to respond when Richmond broke through and Tara made an impressive save. Sophie did particularly well and demonstrated great speed attacking as well as defending. Hannah made some great defensive stops and passes wide. As did Ashlynn who cleared the ball by passing accurately to Emma or Bethan who never ceased to fight for the ball as right mid or left mid and push it up to the forwards. With good passes from Laura and Emma, I was able to run the ball up the right, curve round the back line and either shoot or pass to Katie and Issy on the P spot. Bethan attacked well, backing up the forwards and scored a great goal from a strike on a short corner. Olivia made some great stops in defence and quick reflexes passed the ball back up to our Mids. There were some lovely goals scored from team work or by individual ability, they were all amazing and well done to the scorers. As a forward line consisting of Issy, Katie, Caitlin and I, our speed and determination really helped to achieve that brilliant success of goals.
The coach’s special award went to Caitlin who played extremely well on the LW in tackling, running the ball, passing accurately and never giving up.
Well done everyone, we certainly proved to the opposition that we are a much stronger side than they have previously encountered. Let’s continue this momentum and excellent play into our next match and do the same again! We should all be incredibly proud of our performance individually and as a team.
The next phase – Regional Clusters –the following teams qualified from the East :
Ipswich
Bury St Edmonds
Tunbridge Wells
Canterbury
Old Loughtonians
Southgate
Surbiton
Epsom
We will be in a group of 4 – with Ipswich, Tunbridge Wells and Southgate at Southgate HC on Sunday 2nd March.
Oh, and if this isn’t enough excitement for one day, I will be sending out the team selection for this coming Sunday (23rd) where we play Guildford in the league – if we win, we win the league – simple as that.
Best
Mark