Having trained hard over the summer, our junior girls’ squad travelled fifty miles to Mellor for their first friendly fixture of the season.
There were a few last minute drop outs from both teams which meant that Chris Wood and Jude Taylor, who had turned up to cheer the girls along, ended up sharing the role of goal keeper appeasing Mellor who also had a boy in goal.
Liverpool seemed nervous to start with conceding a couple of goals from Mellor but Phoebe Taylor, who captained the team, then decided to dominate the centre draws whilst Mellor were unable to keep up with Beth Mulligan who transitioned rapidly from midfield into attack. In the second quarter, Eve Turner took centre position before driving down the pitch scoring goal after goal at which point the referees felt the need to introduce the rule of ‘at least one pass from the centre draw before goals could be scored’ – not that that impacted on Eve’s incredible goal count!
Mellor gave a good performance and had speed on their side however Scarlett Smith was a force to be reckoned with ensuring her opponent constantly lost possession of the ball. In the second quarter, Emily Turner led the defence unit and fought relentlessly scooping up nearly every ground ball before clearing it out to Beth along the side line resulting in one of the best assists and goals of the game! Our youngest player, Olivia Wood, assisted in defence and by the end of the third quarter ran alongside the attack in an effort to steer them off course.
As the third quarter concluded, Liverpool found they were down by three goals perhaps because I kept forgetting about the offside rule! A quick team talk realigned our focus on the importance of being positive and fighting for every single ball…. and that is exactly what they did!
Chris delivered strong clears astutely identifying Emily Kidd for her optimum positioning and by the final quarter Emily excelled in attack and despite being sandwiched by Mellor’s defence, she dodged past them by maintaining a strong momentum coupled with some excellent and undefeatable cradling all of which allowed, Phoebe, Emily Turner and Jude to deliver some powerful goals resulting in an 11-10 win to our girls!
I have awarded the ‘Most Valuable Player’ award to Emily Kidd who showed calm and determination in the face of pressure from some of Mellor’s strongest players – well done Emily!
I should also give our joint goal keeper, Chris and Jude, a nod for the ‘goal off’ antics that they initiated which ensured that no one was ever really safe whilst they adopted a risky strategy running wobbling out of goal to the other end of the pitch.
Finally, thank you to all the parents (including Mrs Mir) for being beacons of positivity which makes such a difference at every level of lacrosse.