It was an early start on Sunday at the Olympic park London for Sevenoaks Hockey Club’s U14 girls. They were raring to go and fight for the title in Tier 1 National Plate competition.
The 1st half of the game was dominated by the Sevenoaks forward and midfield players. The opening goal for Sevenoaks came in the 6th minute when a ball from L Hughes was transferred excellently in attacking play to K McKenna who subsequently found H Diprose, who slotted it calmly in the corner! 1-0.
Sevenoaks went from strength to strength, the second came from super attacking play by L Nelson who dragged the keeper out of the goal before slipping the ball to C McKenna who crisply finished in the corner.
The 3rd goal came from a fast break which ended with N Taylor at the top of the circle, hitting it in for 3-0.
Sevenoaks incessant pressure resulted in numerous short corners. A clinical clean strike from L Hughes found the right hand corner making it 4-0.
The 5th goal started with a quick transfer around the back, E Holthausen to M De Jonge who instinctively found C McKenna up the line who finished with aplomb. Sevenoaks 6th was started a superb interception by M Wright with H Diprose convering the pass into a goal.
Alderly Edge came out all guns blazing in the second half creating several break aways however very little got past V Kern in the middle or the final line of defence. Z Starr wearing her Kent goal keeping shirt commanded the final defence line amazingly well and kept a clean sheet for the game and in fact has only let a handful of goals in all season.
A spokesperson for the club said: “Gold medals were well deserved for this amazing group of girls who have fought for each other on and off the pitch since they started playing hockey together at the tender age of seven.”
• This competition has not existed before this season in its current format, which was knock out from the start across all age groups and all tiers rather than local round robin then regional round robin and then knock out for quarter finals onwards, so its the first national win in this format
