2019 - Sunday 24th March - U14 Boys win EH Cup Regional Round
Winchester HC boys qualify for the EH Cup U14 Finals and will travel to Reading Hockey club. Looking for A repeat of 2 years ago.
—————————————————
A great day was spent at Clifton Robinson HC in Bristol on Sunday for the U14 boys at one of the EH Cup Regional finals. Winchester were set to play Clifton HC, Bournemouth HC and Team Bath HC.
With the sun shining, the boys warmed up and the pitches were watered. Parents at the ready the matches started with Winchester up against Clifton first off.
Within a couple of minutes the home side Clifton managed to run behind the Winchester defence and scored a very convincing goal. (W 0-1 CR).
To their credit the Winchester boys kept their calm and doubled down. It was then Winchester’s turn and Max Wedderburn put the goal into the net to equalize before half time. (W 1-1 CR).
Winchester came out firing on all cylinders in the second half and dominated the game. A second goal was put away by Dom Fernando, before the game finished. (W 2-1 CR).
On the other pitch Bournemouth had drawn with Bath.
Winchester then played against Bournemouth. This was always going to be a challenging game as the teams had played against each other three times this season. Today was to be Winchester’s day. After a great short corner Winchester were awarded a Penalty flick which Olly Lander cleanly put away without any trouble. After a very long first half time was called. (W 1-0 B).
The second half was Winchester’s game and as the team settled into a calm and organized structure, we started to truly see how great this team is. Another short corner was executed perfectly, giving Olly Lander another notch on the score board. (W 2-0 B).
Much to the relief of the parents, the other game between Clifton and Bath had ended in a draw. So Winchester were through to the U14 National Finals at that point. It was now just about finishing the day without question the winners.
The game against Team Bath started well with a short corner being played all over the D before being put away by Henry Crompton.
Bath were not going to make it easy for Winchester however and despite going into half time one goal up, Bath then equalized early in the second half.
Defensively Winchester fought hard with some brilliant tackling by Matt De Lara, Fin Kilpatrick and Josh Long being supported by the mid field who ran back and forth tirelessly.
Winchester regained their focus and then despite struggling to maintain their composure at times a superb deflection was scored by Max Wedderburn. Winchester were ahead again.
It is difficult to mention everyone in this brief report but today was a day of 15 players all of whom stepped up when it was asked of them, not least Lead Coach Howard Chaplin-White and his support team.
A very well deserved place in the EH Cup U14 National Finals at the Reading Hockey club on Saturday 11th May 2019.
