King's Hawford
18 October
Hockey Highlights This Week at King’s Hawford
U9 Hockey Bluecoat Festival
On Tuesday the U9 Hockey girls travelled to Birmingham for The Blue Coat U9 Hockey Festival. They played for the first time with a fully kitted Goal Keeper with Amelie B stepping into the role with confidence and an exceptional performance. Amelie cleared her lines with powerful kicks and was supported by her defence of Eleanor N and Alanna A.
Aurelia A, Elise M and Tilly C maintained an excellent attack throughout all the matches with Persie D and Ellie H converting their deliveries into goals.
The girls played a total of five matches that afternoon with not a single loss and having enjoyed every minute of the festival. Overall, it was a performance to be proud of and brings the half term of Hockey to a very positive end.
The player of the festival chosen by the coaches was Alanna A for her all-round contribution, both in attack and defense, in every game.
U8’s Hockey At King’s St Alban’s
Due to bad weather conditions, this match was cancelled and both King’s Hawford and King’s St Alban’s joined together for a training session, which mixed them up into 8 teams. They had four matches against each other and demonstrated great team working and enthusiasm. . It was a lovely afternoon and great to see the foundation working together, the girls all had fun and enjoyed playing in so many matches .
U10 Hockey – RGS The Grange Tournament
Following a huge downpour the U10 girls were fortunate to find a dry window of weather and took to the pitch along with five other competing schools.
A strong and organised performance against Bromsgrove ended in a draw with Robyn C making some tremendous saves and some confident and powerful clearances. Rosie and Zara worked tirelessly to tackle and clear the ball in defense showing their growing confidence. The girls took great pride in a well fought game with RGS The Grange. A goal from Maysie L secured the win with some excellent work rate through the midfielders Jasmine O and Charlotte F.
After a short rest they went head-to-head with Dean Close for the third match of the tournament. A fantastic phase of attack resulted in a tremendous goal by Florrie W which levelled the result to a draw.
Despite a very strong start against Winterfold seeing the King’s Hawford girls create 2 goals through Maysie L Winterfold managed to come back in the latter half and level up the score for a 2-2 draw. The team took a couple of knocks in this game with Jasmine hitting the floor and Ariana taking a knock to the hand. Both girls showed grit and determination to come back on the pitch for their team.
The final game against our sister school, King’s St Alban’s, was a great display of hockey with Annie W coming on in attack and linking nicely with Ariana. Despite a hard fought 10 minutes the girls ended with a scoreless draw.
The U10 girls played some great Hockey and gained some valuable experience finishing in 2nd place overall.
U11’s IAPS Hockey Tournament
Following the success of the KSW Hockey team the night before the U11 team were buzzing to play in the annual IAPS Hockey Tournament. We travelled to Cheltenham under blue skies and sunshine and as ever the girls enjoyed an upbeat minibus journey with plenty of singing. The girls were delighted that we were joined by Miss Sanders from the Senior School and would like to say a huge thank you for all her support.
The girls took to the pitch in their first game against Dean Close showcasing some beautiful passing play. Pippa P was cool calm and collected in front of goal to be first on the score sheet. Olivia G put through a great assist supporting Pippa P in her second goal of the match and Millie B sealed the win with another.
In the second match against Cheltenham Prep Pip K and Elizabeth distributed the ball beautifully as ever with Marnie and Jasmine initiating a number of attacks to set Pippa P up for another two goals to seal another win in the pool stage.
Next in the group we met our neighbours King’s St Albans. Jasmine Iza MP and Thea all worked hard to get the win and in the final game against The Elms the girls were able to make a huge impact with Iza MP crossing the ball to Thea for a well timed goal. The team demonstrated a number of well executed Short Corners in both attack and defense and a special mention must go to Mary W who had an outstanding performance in goal making confident saves and clearances whenever necessary.
The girls finished top of their Group with four clear wins and went through to the Quarter Finals. The team struggled to put the ball in the back of the net against Bilton Grange despite doing all the hard work and maintaining most of the possession. At the final whistle the 0-0 draw meant we went to penalties and the girls stepped up confidently to take on the challenge. Mary made some tremendous saves as did the Bilton Grange goal keeper leaving both teams tied again. Unfortunately, the sudden death penalties saw King’s Hawford leave the tournament at the Quarter final stage however overall, the team played some tremendous Hockey throughout the day and should be incredibly proud of their efforts. There is an exciting future ahead for this group of Hockey players.