2-1 win keeps Reigate at the top

Our return match with Mid Surrey was at Tiffin’s School, the other side of Kingston town centre, but our intrepid team all made it to the meet on time – except one! It was a fairly average February day with some sprinklings of rain but nothing to write home about. The team was missing a few familiar faces with Freya in the 1s, Ali K still on the slopes in Meribel and poor old Woolfy’s knee keeping her on the sideline. We had a strong squad nonetheless and were ready to defend our lead at the top of the league.

The match started a little late due to the preceding game but Reigate got straight to work exerting pressure with their own brand of champagne hockey (I am making this up as I hadn’t arrived yet). Jess, who had been delayed by a dodgy plane, French air traffic control and then Gatwick’s baggage handlers, eventually arrived about 10 minutes after the start when it was nil all.

Ellie Craven, back from her month of holidays, was holding the centre and distributing the ball excellently, with Alex and Harriet both having stormers as the halves; coming back to help defend and then pushing up well to feed the ball to our front line. Hannah, Bridget, Lucy, Karen and Hetti were an indominatable force up front, constantly pushing their defence. Rachel, who is coming back from injury, was a fantastic utility player. She made her mark in defence and attack on Saturday and is looking strong again!

We continued to play hard and worked the ball up to the attack and were rewarded with a beautifully worked goal from Hetti on the right after she ran the ball up the wing almost to the line and slotted it in from an almost impossible angle. We were off!

We came into half time 1-0 up and Kaz gave us a good talking to about hockey and goals and stuff (I can’t really remember as I’d been up since 3am at this point). We went back out fired up by the team shout of ‘GOALS’!

The second half was much the same as the first with the team working hard. About ten minutes into the second half Ellie scored with a reverse stick that saw the ball fly into the top left hand corner of the goal – you can’t defend that. 2-0!! We had a few short corner opportunities but these didn’t quite come off and more practice is needed at training guys.

The defenders were kept busy and Camilla in goal had a storming game saving goals and taking out players. We managed to frustrate the opposition until they scored from a short corner, one of quite a few that were given in quick succession. It was 2-1 and we had about ten minutes to play. Everyone dug deep and we managed to hold on to the end.

Our ball speed and discipline within the formation were not always 100%. At one point every player was in one quarter of the pitch. We need to keep wide, hold our shape and keep calm. There were a few excitements, including Janet telling the boys team on the sideline to leave the pitch after they let a ball dribble on right next to play and the resulting bully off. I think Lucy may have been warned as well, I can’t quite remember.

A big thank you too to our super sideline supporters Woolfy and Sian and too Janet for umpiring!!