Combined Worthing/Basingstoke water polo successes

Ladies London League. Division 2.

Tournament 3, Whitgift School, Croydon.

Sunday 7th June 2009.

The final tournament of the 2009 Ladies London League took us back to the excellent deep water pool at Whitgift school in Croydon.

The event had the making of an exciting affair with our new combined Worthing/Basingstoke team level on points at the top of table with Beckenham ladies.

As a result the key fixture looked to be the first match of the days program with the winner looking likely to take the overall title.

Unfortunately our squad was missing Chrissy Pilcher who was unavailable because of illness and Becky Anderson who was away at Loughborough University studying for exams.

These are the individual match reports.

Match 1. Worthing/Basingstoke 7, Beckenham 1. (H/T 2-1)

A match that will be remembered unfortunately for the idiosyncratic officiating which spoilt what should have been an exciting encounter.

Our girls were worthy winners and were always in control but the final score did not reflect the closeness of the match. Certain key decisions went our way and we scored a number of goals as a result.

Our defending was always of a high quality and because of this we always looked the more likely team to win the match.

Scorers; - Jenny Willett 3, Mel Hart 3, Kelli Bird 1.

Exclusions; - Emily Griffiths 1, Stacy Darbyshire 1.

Match 2. Worthing/Basingstoke 10, Oxford 1. (H/T 3-0)

A satisfactory win for the team when swimming speed and fitness were the key.

A number of our goals were scored as a result of simple turnovers and the opposition had no answer to our counter-attacking.

Defensively we played well again and goalkeeper Kayley Alcorn dealt well with a small number of speculative shots.

Scorers; - Hannah Chilton 4, Mel Hart 3, Jenny Willett 2, Kelli Bird 1.

Exclusions; - Emily Griffiths 2, Hannah Chilton 1.

Match 3. Worthing/Basingstoke 7, Penguin III 5. (H/T 3-2)

The final score indicates a close result but we were always in control of this match against a physical opposition.

Once again it was the speed of our counter-attacking that did the damage and Penguin constantly struggled to deal with this aspect of our play.

Both teams looked tired playing their 3rd game of the day and this probably explains the high number of exclusions committed.

Scorers; - Jenny Willett 4, Mel Hart 2, Hannah Chilton 1.

Exclusions; - Emily Griffiths 3, Claire Liggins 1, Amy Stringer 1, Mel Hart 1, Kelli Bird 1.

Squad in Full; - Kayley Alcorn (G/K), Jenny Willett, Emily Griffiths, Claire Liggins, Stacy Darbyshire, Hannah Chilton, Amy Stringer, Mel Hart, Kelli Bird.

The three wins secured the Division 2 title and Jenny Willett was presented with the trophy after the final match.

This was an excellent result for this new combined team at it was particularly good to see how well the girls form both clubs worked together.