Snow & Ice can’t stop North U16 Girls from attending Kingston Scrimmage
19th December 2009
With the North U16 Girls League in some disarray this season, Kingston Coach Tim Healand is determined to give as many North players the opportunity to participate in some adhoc scrimmages held at Hull Arena as possible. An earlier season scrimmage was thin on the ground of players due to junior games, so Tim pencilled in 19th December for a pre Christmas scrimmage. With early winter snowstorms across northern England and a possible cancellation, Tim bolstered the players already invited with a few Kingston 16 and 17 year olds to make the scrimmage worthwhile.
Twenty three U16 Girls defied the snow and icy conditions to play in the Whites v Greens game along with some overage players.
Nine Northern clubs were represented from Whitley & Newcastle down to Telford and Nottingham, plus Blackburn, Bradford, Sheffield, Sutton and home team Kingston Diamonds.
With three netminders, Holly Steeples (NottinghamU14), Rachael McGuckin (WhitleyU14) and Beatrice Fletcher (Blackburn/KingstonU16), netminding was rotated every five minutes between both teams.
Tim balanced up the lines evenly and the opening goal was scored by Greens Megan Rathbone (Nottingham/Kingston) assisted by Kirsten at 3:52. The score remained 1-0 at the end of the first period.
From the restart, Amy Campbell (Whitley) won the face off and set up Courtney Aheran (Sheffield) to tie the game at 15:18, and then Amy scored the Whites go ahead goal at 16:20 from a Vicky Johnson (Sutton) feed. The game was played at a pace with constant action at both ends. Whites scored what proved to be the game winning goal at 26:11, Nat setting up Kingston team mate Shannon Jones to score a nifty goal top corner. 3-1 to Whites end of the second.
Again the Whites came out quicker than the Greens to start the third period and opened up a three goal lead at 30:25, Nat assisting the impressive Millie Hooper (Sutton) for a fine finish.
Greens made some great individual plays to try and get back in the game and twice hit the pipework before Telford duo Becky Speckman and Saffron Allen combined for the former to peg it back to 4-2 at 39:27. Greens again pressed forward for another goal and Sarah was slashed by livewire Shannon Jones at 39:44 who sat out a 2 minute minor. Whites killed off the penalty and immediately broke out for Courtney to score her second of the game and complete the scoring.
Overall an excellent game showing that the North does have many girls from U12s to U16s wanting to play Girls hockey, just a pity that a couple of more regional teams cannot be formed to support the overall EIHA concept of wanting to develop the women’s game long term. Without Clubs encouraging Girls hockey teams, the England U16s and GB U18s programs for Girls/Women’s hockey will be hampered.
MVPs went to Whites, Courtney Aheran and Greens, Michaela Johnson (Nottingham)
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