U18 Girls through to National Indoor Finals

Congratulation to the girls U18 indoor team who today qualified for the National Indoor Club Finals.

Beating @CheltenhamHC 3-0 Losing to @ISCAHockeyClub 3-4 and beating @TauntonValeHC 8-3 to qualify as South West runners up.              

A fantastic day of Indoor Hockey culminated in the girls qualifying for the National Finals on the 20th and 21st January at Whitgift School, Croydon.

Match one was against Cheltenham Hockey Club. The girls started slowly in the first half, giving Cheltenham a couple of opportunities to score, but some excellent defending and goal keeping prevented the opposition from gaining an advantage. At the other end of the pitch we could not quite convert our chances and we should really have been up by a couple of goals before half time.  We took control of the game in the second half and created some excellent chances. Goals were scored by Anna, Sophie and Emily and we ended with a 3-0 win.

The second game against ISCA HC turned out to be a tremendous game of indoor hockey. Both teams created chances in the first few minutes but both defences held firm. The deadlock was broken by an ISCA goal at a penalty corner just before half time. 1-0 down at half time, we started the second half brightly and equalised with a Sophie goal. ISCA came back to score two quick goals to go ahead 3-1. Imogen scored a well taken goal to bring it back to 3-2. The game was going down to the wire. A penalty corner for us was well executed with Olivia putting a flick into the top of the net making the score 3-3 with minutes to play in the game. A late well taken winner by ISCA in the final minute of the game was hard to take, but our performance had been outstanding.

A win in our last match was a must if we were to qualify for the Nationals.

The match against Taunton Vale started with some excellent passing and movement resulting in four quick goals from Ursie, Sophie, Lizzie and Emily. Taunton Vale scored just before half time making it 4-1 at the break. In the second half we continued to dominate with goals from Chessy and Sophie. Taunton Vale scored a couple of well created goals on the break as we pressed for more goals. The game was finally won with two well executed goals from Anna, making the final score 8 -3; a great win to finish the day.

Overall a great team performance all round with everyone scoring and Katie in goal making some fine saves. We are all looking forward to the Nationals in two weeks’ time. Well done girls.