Girls lose in the Plate Quarter Final on penalty flicks

On Sunday we took the U10 Girls team to the Regional Finals at Surbiton Hockey club.

We knew we would be up against some really good teams and that we would have to play out of our skins to win the tournament.

Our first match was against East Grinstead, and even though we outplayed them at times during the 12 minutes, we were beaten by a goal to nil (0-1). A result we were disappointed with, but determined to do better in our next match.

The next match had us playing Alton, and we kept them at 0-0 until the very last minute when one of their girls broke up the right hand side of the pitch, crossed from just outside the "D" on the backline, and they scored with a sweeping shot from just by the penalty spot. So again we lost 1-0, but we should have at least drawn the match, or won it if our shooting on goal had been more precise.

Onto our last group match, and we played Wimbledon, who were a very strong side and we were 1-0 down within 2 minutes. It was not to get better for us in this match, as Wimbledon totally out played us, with our heads going down (not due to the lack of parent support) but due to the extra 5 goals that they scored. (Wimbledon finished Runners Up in the Cup competition).

We now knew we would be playing in the Plate competition and we were drawn against Trojans. It was a great match and we took the lead through a very well worked passing move, from Rosie in the middle, to JoJo on the right who crossed the ball to Flora on the left post to sweep the ball home for 1-0.

Now we had to defend for a few minutes and we would be in the semi-final, however Trojans never gave up attacking and eventually they found a gap in our defence and the ball was fired right into the corner of the goal giving Georgia no chance to save it. (The goal would have been one that we would have been proud of if we had scored it).

We continued to press and pressure the Trojan "D" but they held firm as the whistle went. Penalty flicks anyone.

Now we had 3 flicks each to see who would go through to the semi-final. Teams missed their first attempts, Trojans scored their 2nd attempt, Georgia saved their third, but unfortunately our third was well saved by their goalkeeper and our adventure for this season was over.

The girls can be very proud of their efforts on the pitch this season, and especially at the Finals playing with a squad of 8 against most other clubs who had the full 10.