The U10 girls do the double and become county and regional championships!!!
Belper U10 girls were invited to take part in the England Hockey U10 regional finals at Rugby School on Sunday 7th May after winning the Derbyshire championships back in March.
Belper started the afternoon playing Newark, Leamington and Northampton in the group stage of the competition. They emerged in first place after conceding only 1 goal and scoring 4. The girls continued with their professional approach, stuck to the game plan and scored an impressive 5 goals in ten minutes in the quarter finals against Lichfield. Hollie Pitt demonstrating excellent finishing skills.
The team then faced a well organised Rugby HC in the semi-finals. They dug deep on a hot afternoon and scored early. Rugby battled to break through, but excellent defending kept the score at 1-0 on the final whistle.
The final, our sixth match of the afternoon was against Leicester HC. The girls brought everything they had to the final 10 minutes, worked really hard as a team, and played some superb attacking hockey which was a pleasure to watch. We kept the pressure on in the D, but the Leicester goalie made some excellent saves and on the final whistle the score was 0-0.
The match was to be decided on penalty flicks. Leicester went first and scored. The pressure was on as Beth Phillips stepped up, but she was calm and clinical and kept the score at 1-1. Leicester continued to score with their next two players, and Belpers’ Hollie Pitt and Tabitha Vaughan stepped up faced the pressure and put away two great flicks. The second round changed to sudden death. Belpers’ Beth Phillips went first and scored her second flick, and so did the next Leicester player. Hollie Pitt kept her cool scored again and it was looking like we might not have a result anytime soon. However, Alex Brown the Belper goalkeeper literally saved the day, and kept the next flick out with an impressive save winning the match for Belper.
Well-done girls, great effort and focus all season.
Squad: Amalie, Holly, Cassie, Tabitha, Beth, Tallulah, Poppy, Alex and Kathryn.
