Horsham beat Worthing – but scoreline is closer than it should have been
While the 4-3 scoreline suggests Horsham HC didn’t exactly make life easy for themselves against Worthing, they ran out worthy winners and were convincingly the better of the two sides.
Coach John Willams’ team seem to have developed the habit of starting slowly but, once they hit their stride can be quite imperious, a 10-minute purple patch putting the game out of reach of the visitors.
The first half was scrappy end-to-end hockey. Ollie Crossley in the Horsham goal forced to make four on-target saves, the Worthing keeper having to make several more. However it was Worthing who scored first when the umpire blew for a penalty corner that mystified the players on both teams. Half-time saw the home side losing 0-1.
It seemed only fair then that home skipper Sean Pearcy levelled the scores in similar fashion, from a short corner 10 minutes after the break. Two minutes later Worthing were rocked when a slick passing movement out of midfield left Kam Masood one-on-one with the keeper inside the D. He doesn’t miss opportunities like that.
Worthing were in disarray and, five minutes on, Mark Bryan found a beautiful long cross field pass to Ollie Spears behind the visiting defence with only the keeper to beat. He easily found the net.
That should really have been ‘game over’ but, perhaps with memories of the previous week’s collapse, Horsham took their foot off the gas. Worthing dialled up the pressure and some sloppy defence in the home red zone resulted in a back post goal to spur the visitors.
With Worthing pushing for the equaliser Johnny Ross robbed the ball off a Worthing midfielder and found Ben Humphreys open in the D. Humphreys drew the keeper, and his shot was almost certainly going in but Harry Emberson, poaching on the back post, made sure.
Horsham let in a scrappy goal just before the final whistle but the win sees them in second place – kept off the top by only goal difference.
Pearcy was delighted by the goal tally. "Last season we struggled to score a goal from anywhere. Today three classic field goals down the right wing will be great for the confidence of the boys up front,” he said.