Sunday dawned bright (grey) and early (10am) for our meet against the Medics. Sprint warm-ups on concrete and a striker nearly faceplanting pre-match aside, the team was ready for a predicted fast-paced match on a somewhat unique pitch.

If there were sore legs and tired players from the day before, this did not come across in the play. As with Saturday, the team drove forward on the offensive and placed tremendous effort in ensuring that the defensive half was covered as needed. Stick skills from our central players – Annie, Charlotte, Hannah, Erin and Amelia – aided us with this, helping distribute the ball up the pitch to our attacking line of Laura squared, Claire, and Becca.

A tap from the Medics ensured they were the first to score, but the 3s didn’t let this stand for long – with a slap into the D from Alex and a sweep from Laura C, Laura A was able to equalise in no time at all.

Although increasing our goal count was the aim, it was obviously important to prevent the opposition from doing the same.
Debuting defender Kate aided hugely in this effort, whilst goalkeeper Verity made a cracking stick save during a tense (at least for those on the sideline) short corner towards the end of the match. These efforts were ultimately successful in preventing additional goals scored against us, with the final scoreline at 1-1.

A few injuries on the pitch continued the weekend’s theme, with several free passes awarded to us for foot on ball play from the Medics – largely due to Holly C and Issy’s accuracy in seeking the shoes of the opposition!

On this subject, Holly J was awarded DoD for accidentally wiping out one of the opposition’s players. Our right defender had a busy game – amongst all of the sprinting up and down the line and clearing dangerous balls from our 25, Holly J also had some time for a little ground maintenance whilst trying to find the (second) ball that had hopped the fence and landed in the foliage.

Player of the match was again awarded jointly, to Laura C for her excellent leads to receive, strength on the ball, and creating play up front, and to Holly C for her fabulous tackles and balls into the D.

Both matches were hard-fought, with the scorelines not reflective of the team skill and effort put in throughout. This coming weekend sees an afternoon trip down to Darlington for the L3s, undoubtedly aiming for the first win of the season.