A series of stunning saves by Reading’s Sarah Ellis rescued
what might have been the most boring match of the weekend during the Investec
Women’s Championships and Promotion Play-offs at Reading. It was a pity that the best action of the
match was saved until the one-on-one shoot out decider at the end of the match.
Reading and Leicester are two great sides, but we seem to
have sat through a number of tedious encounters between them and, regrettably, this
was another one. You could almost hear a
groan go round the stadium from the neutral spectators when Vanessa Hawkins
scored an overtime penalty corner to wipe out Reading’s 0-1 lead to put the
match into extra time.
The match had remained scoreless for 52 minutes, until a
stick tackle in the circle resulted in Emma Thomas stepping up to take a
penalty stroke, which she put past Leicester’s goalkeeper Maddie Hinch. The goal
upped the tempo slightly, but not enough to raise the temperature as the
evening chill started to set in.
In the first period of extra time, Reading did not actually
seem to want to come out to play, and were content to bat the corner around
between each other. And so the match
went to a one-on-one shoot out decider.
We spoke to Sarah Ellis after the match, and it appears that
the team had studied Leicester’s techniques at one-on-one deciders. It certainly
showed. Four times Ellis took on the
incoming opponent and robbed them of the ball.
Unfortunately it’s a one card trick, and we cannot see her getting away
with it in future, but it certainly was a most extraordinary piece of
goalkeeping.
So the Investec Women’s Championships went to Reading with
the score for the shoot out 0-2 in their favour. It was certainly something
memorable to take away from the match.
In the earlier 3rd/4th place match, Canterbury
emerged as victors in a closely contested game with Surbiton. Surbiton twice
took the lead, first from an own goal and then from Amy Bryant, only to see Jade
Mayne score two goals to draw level. The
winner came from a Sarah Kerly penalty corner with 10 minutes of play left.
In the Women’s Promotion play-offs we were expecting
fireworks from on-form Beeston when they played Harleston Magpies. There were fireworks, but Beeston seemed to
have mislaid their matches for the first half, where they really seemed to
struggle against the East Conference side.
The game really came alive in the 58th minute, when Beeston
increased their 1-3 lead in the space of less than 60 seconds. Sophie Robinson went on to score Beeston’s
sixth, and her hat-trick, seven minutes later.
Final score 1-6 and Beeston are now promoted to the Premier Division.
Olton and West Warwicks managed to escape relegation by holding
Buckingham 1-2. Despite Olton’s defeat, Buckingham’s goal difference means that
Olton stay in the Premiership, and Buckingham fail to achieve promotion at the
third attempt. This is Olton’s second
visit to the play-offs in three seasons.
Final table: 1.
Beeston 6 Pts (+7), 2. Olton & West Warwicks 6 pts (+2), 3. Buckingham 6
pts (-1), 4. Harleston Magpies 0 pts (-8).
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE SUNDAY AT READING ARE NOW ON OUR
PICTURES SITE AT www.HockeyImages.co.uk.
