Vets

Sunday 9th October 2011, saw Driffield Ladies Vets play Preston

Ladies Vets in the England Hockey Investec Women's Masters Over 35's

Cup competition.

With a somewhat depleted squad available for the match, a resiliant 12 ladies took to the pitch in good spirit to try again in the national competition. The Preston Ladies had travelled over the night before and following a lovely evening meal and accomodation at The St Quintin's Arm at Harpham were ready to take to the pitch and give as good as they were about to get.

With a new formation for most players it took a while for the Driffield ladies to settle and within 4 minutes had conceeded a short corner to Preston. After an initial great first touch and save from keeper Mel Pitchford, Preston were quick to find the back of the net from the deflected save. With their midfield somewhat out of sorts Driffield

were keen to get the ball out wide to Zoe Howe to take advantage of her notoriuos speed and skill on the wing. With a few good runs and crosses to forwards Zoe Harrison and Debbie Shawcross, Driffield started to settle and find their way. With end to end play the defense of Sue Morgan and Mags Purnell held off most of the Preston attack until a quick break and after 42minutes Preston had their second. Helen Holdsworth played solidly as sweeper picking up and clearing the ball up field on many occasions with Kathryn Wright sitting tight on her

player. Zoe Howe pushed her self even beyond her own limits and had to sub with a hamstring injury allowing Rachel Shrimpton to come on in her place. Fiona Tuplin worked hard in the midfield and eventually the team work and passing with Jenny Dawson started to look like Driffield could take the attack on to the Preston goalie after half time.

After the break Driffield came out stonger and had the majority of the play with numerous chances in their D but being unable to finish in both open play and penalty corners. After a hard spell of dominating the game, Preston got a quick break and again forced a penalty corner and covnerted it to make the score 3-0. Frustrated but not

disheartened, Driffield continued to apply the pressure with Sarah Soanes working as hard as ever to hold back the Preston attack. With Helen Holdsworth now pushing up field and playing a more attacking role the midfield had extra power and legs and continually worked the ball well out to Rachel Shrimpton who fed the D time and time again for the forwards to fail to convert. The frustration was evident in Jenny Dawson's vocal outburst to herself which earnt her a Green Card warning. Eventually one of her crosses found its way to Zoe Harrison who passed across the D to find Sue Morgan storming in at the top to put the ball frimly in the back of the net and show the forwards how it should be done! 2 minutes later Driffield were back in the D with Jenny Dawson, now much calmer, unselfishly laying the ball off infront of the keeper to allow Zoe Harrison to finish it off to make it 3-2.

With only 3 minutes to go it was too little too late for Driffield - if only we had another 10 minutes we could have done so much more.

Well done and congratualtions to all the Driffield Ladies who played and put on a great performance. Although slow to settle and get started, we won the second half convincingly but sadly lost the match 3-2.

VETS