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England
Hockey National Indoor
Premier
League
Three wins out of four, including a
derby win over Chelmsford, saw Ipswich finish 2007 on a high after the first
batch of fixtures in the English Premier League Indoor Hockey. The Suffolk
club go into the Christmas break tied with Olton and Chelmsford on 9
points, 3 points behind league leaders and defending Champions
Slough.
Ipswich started their weekend with a
great 4-2 win over a Bowdon Hightown team that had knocked them out of
the semi-finals last year. With Emma Lee-Smith only able to play in this one
game she made her presence count by scoring 2 goals, with her sister Becky
Baker and Leisa King scoring the others.
Unfortunately after a long gap of over
3 hours the Suffolk side undid some of their good work by losing to newly promoted
Clifton 2-1. Despite creating bags of chances Ipswich just could not find their
way past Clifton's inform Goalkeeper who produced a string of last ditch
saves. Leisa King scored Ipswich's only goal of the game.
After that loss Sundays early morning
derby game against Chelmsford was crucial for Ipswich and the team showed
great determination and control to run out 4-3 winners. Leisa King scoring
twice with Lizzy Aldous and Jess Bloom bagging the other goals.
The last game of the weekend saw
Ipswich play a Sevenoaks side that had yet to win a point and despite not
racking up the goals they wanted, a 4-2 win was satisfactory enough. Captain
Becky Baker scored a brace ,while leading scorer King and Bloom were on
target again.
Becky Baker
celebrates her goal
With the top four teams qualifying for
finals night, Ipswich have given themselves a great chance to make a fourth consecutive
appearance. Last year they qualified in 3rd place with 15 points, so a
minimum of 2 wins out of the next four games should be enough to see the Suffolk
Team through. However there are no easy games in this league and Ipswich
will have to play well to overcome any of their remaining opponents, Olton,
Sutton, Slough and Canterbury.
"We wanted to give our Coach
Royce Waters an early Christmas present " said Captain Becky Baker
" by getting some good results over the weekend and I think we have
done that. Obviously losing to Clifton was a blow but our performance and
win against Chelmsford highlighted the progress we have made in only a week.
The Christmas break will give us a chance to re-charge our batteries
and we are looking forward to the remaining fixtures and hopefully another
trip to the NIA for finals day"
Ipswich's next round of games take
place on Saturday the 12th and Sunday 13th January with finals day taking
place on Sunday 27th January. Tickets for the finals day can be bought on
line from www.englandhockey.co.uk
with U18's tickets only costing £1 for the whole day it is a cheap and
great day out for the entire family.
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