After a successful second half of the season in the regional T2 leagues, Ipswich HC U14G 1st team travelled to Saffron Walden for the Regional Finals. They had been on a good run on the build up not loosing for some time and had trained hard for many weeks under Head Coach Peter Wright.

The girls worked hard in their first game v’s the hosts, however they did not have their passing game hat on and carried the ball too much leading to a 1-1 draw, where it should really have been a win. The coaching team of Peter Wright and Pete Bale had a few minutes to rectify this before the next game v’s West Suffolk.

The Ipswich team dominated the next game and once they got their passing game going they started to see the fruits of this with a 5-0 win. It was a very strong performance with the girls really starting to ship the ball around the pitch well. This included at one point carrying out 5 passes with just 2 touches on each pass… it was like watching them in a (very good) training session, a real pleasure to witness!

After an hour’s break and refuel Ipswich faced Bishop Stortford’s 2nd team. This was more of a challenge but the team stuck at their new method of passing the ball rather than running with it and secured another win, including a brilliant reverse hit goal from Mille H.

The team then moved onto their final game to face Bishop Stortford 1st team, who were top of the table, not having dropped a point yet. This match turned out nicely for the tournament organisers as it became the tournament final. It was a tight game for the first half. Ipswich had a lot of possession but thanks to the coaching from the girls trusted their process by quickly passing the ball around they scored twice, both were great goals from skipper Maisie D. The brilliant defence and goal keeping kept the opponents from scoring and this was key in Ipswich HC ending up securing the win and taking 1st place in the tournament.

Well done to all the girls you have far exceeded the club’s expectations of what you could achieve 18 months ago. You have won the T2 regionals but more importantly all progressed so much and have helped our U14 age group swell with numbers. It also helps set the club up for the long term as we also have a great number of U12’s joining the U14’s next season too. We have lots of our current U14’s hopefully going to continue their age group hockey with Ipswich HC and create a highly successful U16 squad next season too.

Well done everyone involved and thank you parents for your support too.

Billy and the team