Sunday 31st January 2010

Under 12s

Aylesbury's U12 girls and boys joined forces this weekend to compete in the highly challenging Wallingford Tournament, which sees the best teams in Oxfordshire and Berkshire enter however; the Aylesbury youngsters did their county proud.

The first of the pool matches saw Aylesbury dominate from the start with some slick passing and great skills on show. It was not long until Daniel Lindars had wrapped up a comfortable 2-0 win with a brace of goals. The second match was a much tighter affair with Aylesbury trading blows with West Witney until the dying seconds of the match when Dylan Lim Hon scored with the final touch to give Aylesbury a narrow 1-0 win. The third match of the pool was the toughest game of the opening fixtures with opponents Maidenhead contributing to an outstanding game of hockey that neither side deserved to lose and the final score of 0-0 was the perfect outcome for such a hard fought encounter. The final group game saw Aylesbury needing to win to guarantee a semi final place and a margin of victory of two clear goals to win the group. Some fine attacking play quickly saw Aylesbury get the two goals they required from the sticks of Daniel Lindars and Amelia Hollingworth however a goal from Rover Oxford late in the game saw Aylesbury progress as runners up and still undefeated.

The semi final saw Aylesbury take on last year's champions Oxford Hawks and a tight opening to the game quickly saw Aylesbury put serious pressure onto the Hawks goal but to no avail. The team then seemed to tire and Hawks eventually ran out 3-0 winners and progress to the final.

The Aylesbury youngsters played some great hockey throughout the tournament and were rightly congratulated by the spectators from all teams. The squad was; Jessica Adams, Craig Bond, Erin Coulter, Amelia Hollingworth, Mollie Howitt, Dylan Lim Hon, Daniel Lindars, Lucy Miller, Charlotte Oswald and Jack Sloan.

Under 10s

Aylesbury U10s attended Wallingford Wildcats tournament this past Sunday. Aylesbury were in group A and won 4 out of 4 games, which placed them in the Semi Finals against Reading.

Aylesbury's first game was against Wallingford A and they pressured and controlled the home team, and scored from a break on the left from defence with a strong ball out from Charlie Adams to Alice Rolfe who placed the ball past the keeper on the near post.

The 2nd game followed the same determination but this time Aylesbury pushed the ball wide on the right and Ellie Kiely struck the ball across the D for Alice Rolfe to plant the ball in the goal.

For their 3rd game the whole team came alive, from the spectacular save from Jess Potts in goal to the slick moves of Alex Elliott in Defence Aylesbury won 5-0 with Robyn Cumberland scoring 3 fantastic and determined goals for the team.

Aylesbury's next game was against Rover Oxford who had also won every game. It was a tight end to end game, but it took a good save from keeper Jess which was picked up by Alex in defence and then onto Alice who then passed to Robyn who then took it passed their defence and struck a clean hard shot into their goal.

Then came the semi final. Aylesbury pushed hard from the whistle and made the Reading keeper make some very good saves. Aylesbury won a short corner (with 2 minutes to go) for their pressure, but they hit the post and the rebound was picked up by Reading midfield, who passed the ball quickly and smartly onto their forwards who then placed the one and only goal past Jess Potts.

Aylesbury won 4 games without conceding a single goal, but lost a good entertaining Semi Final against Reading 0-1.

Aylesbury Goal Scorers were:

Player Goals
Robin Cumberland 4
Alice Rolfe 2
Ellie Kiely 1
Alex Elliott 1

The Aylesbury team played a fabulous tournament with amazing play and some real poetic passing. The players were:- Charlie Adams, Lucy Cooling, Robyn Cumberland, Alex & Ben Elliott, Ellie Kiely, Jack Pearse, Jessica Potts, Alice Rolfe, Emily Taylor, Phoebe Teychenne. Well done to them all; they did Aylesbury proud.