Mitre retain Junior House hockey cup!

This afternoon saw some superb hockey played by all the Junior House teams, with Mitre fighting to retain the Junior House hockey cup!

The team were eager and willing, and Mitre arrived in House tops, Mitre socks and with the supporters holding Mitre umbrellas’ ready to get stuck in for a great afternoon of hockey.

Mitre was drawn against The Garden in the semi-finals. The game was fast and there was lots of good attacking play from Mitre. Once the team found their stride they also started to score some very convincing goals. They took a 4-0 lead in the first half with Zoe Buckland setting up many of the goals in this first half, helped by Emily Mitchell sweeping them into the goal. They added another 2 goals to this in the second half finishing the match with a very convincing 6-0 win. One of the reasons for this success was that the team kept their formation throughout the match. All players knew where they were playing and kept the structure throughout the course of the game. This was an excellent game from which to go into the final of this knock-out competition.

The final was a nail-biting competition against The Field. The Field had won 2-0 against the Abbey in the semi-finals and it was clear that this was going to be a tough match. In the first half of the game the Field had the dominance of the play and Mitre was helped to stay level by Olivia Omilana making some excellent saves in goal. At the end of the first half it was neck and neck 0-0. In the second half of the match Mitre picked up its game. Having gained a short corner Nat Mansfield managed to take a goal from this set-piece and this put the Mitre 1-0 up. After this more of the play was in the Mitre half and Nat scored from another short corner. Nat made it a final goal to take a hat rick with the last goal of the afternoon being driven by her from the half way point and down into the goal past a number of Field players.

Overall, an excellent afternoon of hockey played in great spirit. The players on pitch and the supporters on the side lines all contributed to the atmosphere of the competition. The standard of hockey from all teams was excellent and it was truly wonderful to see such a high standard of hockey being played within the inter-House competitions. Many thanks to Mr Jones for organising the afternoon and to all the hockey umpires who helped to make it such an enjoyable afternoon.

Squad: Nat Mansfield (Captain), Zoe Buckland, Emily Gerard-Pearse, Laura Carver, Tess Collins, Tara Polglase, Olivia Omilana, Polly Sloman, Emily Mitchell, Joanna Goodhead, Molly Papadopoullus, Georgia Langford