British Colleges National Knock Out Hockey Cup Finals

Moulton College 3 – Chichester College 7

Laura Whittle, Jess Lovell, Emily Broughton

Moulton College travelled to Bloxham School in Oxfordshire to play in the National Knock Out Hockey Cup Final. Their opponents, Chichester College have strong international links and had only two British players in their squad with the rest from the Netherlands and Belgium – both nations renowned for producing excellent hockey players!!

But Moulton were not put off by this and had a confident start with Jemma White and Jess Lovell close to scoring in the opening minutes. Chichester than began to get in their stride and despite some excellent defending by Moulton they were able to sneak one past keeper Alex Holmes. This did not deter Holmes who had an outstanding game in goal. Moulton then equalised with a fantastic solo effort by Captain Laura Whittle and the game was wide open again with only 15 minutes gone.

Chichester then applied the pressure again and an injury to defender Amy Wykes lead to a penalty corner that was neatly converted. An unusual mistake by Moulton lead to Chichester’s 3rd goal when a back pass was intercepted and well struck into the top left corner. Chichester then scored their 4th when a goal mouth scramble hit a Moulton foot on the line and a penalty stroke was awarded and neatly converted.

Moulton were 4 – 1 down going into the break; it was going to be tough to recover from this but Moulton put everything into it! The second half was a much more even game and Jess Lovell and Mollie Gardner worked well together in midfield. Despite this, Chichester scored their 5th goal early on as the umpire began to make some odd decisions which started to have an effect on the game as one of Chichester’s Dutch contingent was sin binned for arguing with the umpire. This gave Moulton the boost they needed. Jess Lovell scored Moulton’s second with well worked play between Lovell, Gardner and Allnatt and Jemma White made some excellent runs down the right hand side with her crosses threatening the Chichester goal. It was this move that saw Moulton grab their third goal with a neat touch in from Emily Broughton. This brought the score to 5 – 3 with 20 mins remaining on the clock and Moulton were in with a chance.

Unfortunately, two more dubious umpiring decisions saw Moulton concede a 6th goal and were denied the chance to score their 4th at the opposing end. A penalty corner was awarded after Gardner was sin binned for a poor stick tackle but it was saved off the line by Whittle. However the resulting long corner lead to a more serious injury to Wykes and after the game restarted, Chichester sealed their win with the 7th goal.

Despite this Moulton continued the pressure until the final whistle. A brave performance for the girls who all showed 100% commitment throughout the game and worked tirelessly from start to finish. Despite losing in finals the experience has been a fantastic boost for the girls and college hockey and was the last game for Laura Whittle, Jemma White, Jess Lovell, Mollie Gardner, Lottie Allnatt, Becca Hargin and Alex Holmes who have all made a fantastic contribution. We wish them the best of luck for their continued studies and hockey in the future.

Squad: Alex Holmes, Mollie Gardner, Laura Whittle ©, Jemma White, Hannah Bullimore, Jo Livesay, Lottie Allnatt, Hannah Newlyn-Jones, Jess Lovell, Amy Wykes, Emily Broughton, Ellen Johnston, Lucy Quirke and Becca Hargin.