Over the past two weeks the indoor hockey season has swung into gear and for only the second time in the School’s history, all four squads – U16 Girls and Boys and U18 Girls and Boys – have made the South Indoor Finals.
In mid-November the U16 Girls cruised through their heats beating Godolphin & Latymer 3-0, Hurst 4-1 and Claire’s Court 2-1. This Sunday was a much harder test at the South Finals. They started with an outstanding performance against the traditionally strong Sir William Borlase and had an amazing 16 shots in just 20 minutes of hockey without finishing off the job in front of goal. Borlase scored from their only incursion into our D, but we finally ran out 2-1 winners scoring a short corner in overtime. A comfortable 2-0 win over Kingston meant that we had qualified for the semis with a game to spare. Our last pool game against St Teresa’s was therefore a rather more relaxed affair for us whilst they needed a result to get through to the semis after a draw with Borlase. They ran out 7-3 winners. So on to a semi against a strong Great Marlow side – a nail-biting encounter ensued during which we had more of the possession but were unable to break them down until midway through the second half when we scored the only goal of the contest to qualify for the National Finals. The final saw us draw 3-3 with St Teresa’s only to lose on sudden death penalty flicks.
Squad: Ruby Bailey, Liv Barker, Millie Charnock, Mattie Hamilton, Siena Keijsers, Georgie Lawes, Liv Martin, Immi Pilling, Sasha Pilling, India Scott, Boau-Lilly Shepherd, Eliza Wheeler
The U18 boys started their heats slowly against a quick and fluent Eastbourne team and lost out by the odd goal in three in a close game. A good performance against St John’s produced a fairly comprehensive 3-1 win and was followed by another good 2-0 win over Trinity to seal a place in the South Finals. On Sunday at those finals they had an extremely tough group and performed at an excellent level throughout, losing 1-2 to a strong St Lawrence team before putting in a great show in beating RGS Guildford 3-0. Ably directed by injured captain Will Tristem and last year’s captain Freddy Esplen, the final pool game was against Reeds and any of three sides could make the semis depending on the result. In a really tight game, we just lost out 1-2 once again to two well executed short corners – a valiant effort.
Squad for South finals: Luke Cahusac, Ben Fewings, Will Firth, Luca La Costa, Tom Lawes, Felix Rodriguez, Ethan Stiles, Olly Witts
This coming Sunday the Boys U16s and Girls U18s have their South Finals and we wish them the best of luck.
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