Buckingham 6 Exe 1

Buckingham bounced back to winning ways with a resounding 6-1 win at home to Exe. Buckingham started well but the visitors full of confidence following last weeks win over Swansea gave as good as they got in the opening exchanges. However, the home side gradually began to get into the ascendency and it was a fantastic individual goal from vice captain Alex Naughalty that opened the scoring after nineteen minutes. Some fine skill took her past a couple of defenders before she unleashed a powerful shot from the edge of the D, high into the net. Just a minute later in was 2-0 when new recruit, Storm Sunderland, playing only her third game for the club, tapped home on the far post following a fine move down the left hand side. She claimed her second just five minutes later when she was first to pounce on a rebound following Buckingham’s second penalty corner. It was 4-0 when just two minutes later when the front two linked up and Abbie Brant produced a superb diving finish to make it 4-0. Buckingham created a couple more opportunities to extend their lead further but it was the visitors who scored next from a penalty corner right on the stroke of half time following some sloppy defending.
Buckingham started the second half poorly and conceded a corner in opening thirty seconds but the defence stood firm,. Exe battled really hard to try and get back into the match and the game became a rather scrappy affair for a period and it was not until the final quarter that Buckingham finally broke their resistance. Having worked hard to regain their dominance, It was player of the match Naughalty who scored her second with a rasping drive from Buckinghams sixth penalty corner with eleven minutes remaining. Despite creating a number of other clear openings, Buckingham could not capitalise further until Captain Kitty Higgins put the icing on the cake with for minutes to go. She calmly deflected the ball into the net from a well rehearsed penalty corner routine to make the final score 6-1.