Maximum points for ladies and men’s ones
Another mixed weekend for Newark Hockey Club begins with the Ladies Ones home match against Staveley.
Emily Crisp reports;
Saturday saw the ladies 1s host a struggling Staveley side, who were newly promoted to the midlands feeder league this season, knowing nothing more than a win would do.
Newark started positively, almost immediately winning a succession of short corners which they were unable to convert. Their persistence paid off eventually when a direct strike from the top of the ‘D’ fell to injector Sophie Chambers who dinked the ball into the goal to make it 1-0.
Newark continued to put some good passing play together, not least in the lead up to their second goal. Megan Cocker played the ball from the back to Katherine Hawkins in the middle, who turned and played the early ball out to Rosie Staniforth, who carried the ball at pace down the right wing. Staniforth fired the cross low and hard, with pinpoint precision to Chambers, who deflected in for her second to make it 2-0 to the home side.
Staveley were not deterred and battled hard in the middle of the park, disrupting Newark’s play. This paid off when they broke down the middle, passing the ball to their right, Newark’s defence stood off, allowing the Staveley striker a free shot at goal, which was clinically put away to make the score a nervy 2-1 at half time.
After the break Newark started positively, Shanade Bradley fed the ball to Chambers, who danced around the Staveley defence, drifting left to force a 1 v 1 with the keeper. Chambers was almost certainly going to score her 3rd of the game, but the Staveley keeper, aware of the danger wiped Chambers out. After an angry reaction and some debate, the umpires awarded Newark the flick, whilst at the same time handing the Staveley keeper a Yellow card and 10 minutes in the sin bin. Confusion ensued along with a long delay to play, allowing Staveley to kit up an outfield player to go in goal to face the resulting flick.
By now, a calm Chambers stepped up to take the flick, which she confidently sent high and to the right of the keeper into the goal for her hat trick, making it a more comfortable feeling 3-1 to Newark.
Newark were not going to have it all their own way though, when Staveley scored their 2nd, they broke down the right, crossed the ball in to the Newark D, for the deflection to be met by an oncoming attacker, directing the unstoppable ball into the Newark goal, to make it 3-2 for a nail biting last quarter.
Staveley fought hard winning several short corners in the final 10 minutes, which Newark’s defence managed to scramble clear. Staveley forced Newark’s keeper Lily Dean into a good low save to the right with her stick.
Newark regained their composure and started to string their passes together with Trish Trafford and Bradley combining well down Newark’s left. Trafford fed the ball to Bradley who drove with the ball into the D almost to the baseline. Bradley pushed the ball strongly across the face of goal, in a shot come cross which flew past everyone directly into the goal at the far post to make the final score 4-2.
Newark were content with the win, a battling team performance that wasn’t pretty at times but came away with a valuable 3 points on the board, leaving them 7th in the league table keeping in touch with both Derby and Loughborough Students 4’s. Next week sees the ladies travel away to take on Loughborough Town.
Player of the match: Sophie Chambers
Emily now rounds up the rest of the action from a busy weekend;
The Ladies 2s lost 13-0 to top of the table Nottingham University. The team fought hard and played well with some incredible saves for Goalkeeper Breagha Parr. The coveted Daisy of the game went to Melanie Woods for giving herself a black eye!!
The Ladies 4s lost 6-1 to Worksop 4s with a consolation goal from Alison Sheldon with the Daisy award Jessica Hull for booting the ball on the line with no attempt to get a stick near. Penalty flick resulted
To the Men’s 1s and their 5-1 victory over Boots Made it seven wins from seven outings with 36 goals scored this season, the Newark side continue to go from strength to strength in the North East Premier league.
The Men's 2s lost 5-0 to Nottingham 3s while the Mens 3 beat South Notts 3 by 4-0, goalscorers Willis Gent, Liam Dowson, Seb Hufton, Tim Mcmanus.
On to Sunday and another victory for the Men’s 3 against Belper. Tom Dodd and Theo Inman finding the net. Newark are now sitting 4th in the table.