Buckingham earn valuable points away from home

Right from the warm up the ladies seemed up for the challenge. They began positively, demonstrating superb intensity on both offence and defence and were rewarded as early as the sixth minute. Player of the match Jo Ellis weaved her magic down the baseline with some superb 3D skills before finding an unmarked Alex Naughalty on the flick spot who calmly slotted her second goal in as many games. Buckingham were passing the ball with real quality and dominated both territory and possession for the remainder of the half but despite creating a number of other opportunities they could not add to the score-line. The home sides only real opportunity of the half came in the final five minutes when Buckingham conceded a cheap penalty corner for a poor tackle which resulted in Aly Billington being temporarily suspended. Despite being down to ten players Buckingham retained possession comfortably for the remaining minutes until half time to see out the suspension.
Once again, Buckingham were immediately on the offensive in the second period and produced some fantastic flowing hockey to continually open up the homes sides defence. They extended their lead in the seventh minute when Zoe Shipperley fired the ball home from Buckingham’s third penalty corner. Despite dominating the next period of play they couldn’t extend the lead any further. Gloucester battled back hard and put the visitors under pressure for a spell but Buckingham’s defence held firm and they regained control in the last ten minutes. The win was finally sealed when Ellis scored from another penalty corner with a minute remaining. It had been a thoroughly professional performance to earn a pleasing 3-0 win and with Slough only managing a draw with Swansea, Buckingham have closed the gap at the top to one point.