Exhilerating 9-1 win

We had the most wonderful time yesterday, beating Bicester 4s by 9 goals to 1! The girls surpassed themselves and played mature, skillful and committed hockey to completely dominate the opposition despite how young and new to senior hockey our whole team was. I have genuinely never seen such an inexperienced squad of young players perform so well. Their achievement is all the better for playing without any subs at all after the 3s needed to call-up 4 of our initial team.

We scored 4 goals in the first half, with Hannah scoring the first two despite starting as a screen. She ran relentlessly all game, contributing magnificently all over the pitch. Emily, captaining the team in Ness's absence with the 3rds, scored the 3rd goal, and Izzie scored her debut goal for the team just before half time. In the 2nd half Hannah completed her hat-trick, Izzie scored again and Emily scored a second half hat-trick to take her tally to four. Bicester only managed to penetrate our 23 a few times during the match thanks to the tireless efforts of Hannah and Immo in screen and Tilly's unstinting energy at centre-back, confidently supported by Eliza. Bicester's lone goal came from one of these occasional breaks late in the match. Gemma was inspired at centre-mid, with an unerring ability to get into the right place at the right time to pick up the loose ball, and a lovely chip to deliver it over opposition sticks straight to her team-mates. Georgie has mastered taking play out to the lines and delivering the ball over and over again into the D for the forwards, and she was ably echoed by Olivia C. on the other wing once we swapped Olivia and Emily, unleashing Emily's goal spree up front while letting Olivia settle into the mid-field. And though Olivia T. didn't have the busiest of matches, she still managed to make a couple of lovely saves to keep the goal difference up.

Man of the Match was Emily, closely followed by Tilly, with votes for several others of the team.