England junior girls end at third spot in the Euro Hockey Youth Nations Championship
The English junior girls’ athletes finished their campaign in the Volvo Euro Hockey U-18 Championship, held at SV Kampong, Laan van Maarschalkerweerd in Utrecht, Netherlands, by winning a bronze medal. In the third-place match, the English junior athletes
defeated their Irish counterparts by 4-1 and secured the third place.
The English girls narrowly missed the place in the final against Germany as they were defeated by 2-0 in the semi-final, by the hosts, the Dutch girls, who also successfully managed to defend the title by beating the German juniors by 4-1 in the final.
The English girls dominated their rivals throughout the entire match and especially in the second half of the game in which they scored three out of their total four goals, while they made a solitary-strike in the first half, whereas the Irish outfit scored
their only goal in the second half.
The first half remained very close between the opponents as both the teams created many chances, but could not convert into goals. The first half almost went goalless, but it was England who broke the Irish dead-lock just a minute before the interval, when
Lily Owsley scored the opening goal in the 34th minute.
However, the second half showed the other side of the coin as the English girls dominated the Irish girls from the start to the final whistle. They scored their second goal just four minutes into the second half, when Hannah Martin doubled the English lead
in the 39th minute by striking a beautiful field goal. Six minutes after the second goal, Hannah Martin once again seemed in business, when she brought another wonderful field goal in the 45th minute and tripled the English lead.
The match continued with the same tempo in the remaining time in the second half with an immense pressure from the English athletes. The Irish girls too tried their best in the field and eventually succeeded in the 57th minute, when Lucy McKee
scored the first goal for Ireland, but soon after the English girls once again found the Irish-net in the 58th minute, but this time the scorer was Sophie Crosley who converted a penalty-corner into goal. The match concluded at 4-1 to England.
Meanwhile the English junior boys finished at the fifth place in the tournament. They also beat the Irish junior boys by 3-2 in a very closing contest. Although the English athletes were down by a single goal at the interval, but in the second half and especially
in its last part they really played some awesome hockey and scored three goals that led them to victory.
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