_____Southampton Ladies 1st’s 7 – Bath Ladies 1st’s 6______

Wednesday 19^th November saw the Ladies 1sts at home come up against Bath in their first match of the year. Despite Bath having already played two matches in their season to our none, they were so intimidated upon seeing us arriving on poolside in our Christmas wrapping paper-style costumes that they decided to resort to petty scare tactics before we even entered the pool. Once all the hassle and faff of finding everyone’s student cards and resetting the timings was over, the game begun.

Quickly, we realised that indeed- their intimidation tactics HAD worked. Our first quarter started off slowly, our arc a little bit ‘snake with a broken back’ shaped and we allowed Bath to drop on our pit and outside players too many times. Thankfully, our superstar goalkeeper held up a solid last line of defence, only allowing two balls to pass her magnetic hands. The quarter ended 2-1 to Bath.

A stirring post-quarter speech (capable of bringing the dead back to life through sheer will power, so I’m told) brought the Southampton ladies back into line. Back into the pool, this time defending the shallow end; we set up picture perfect arcs in both attack and defence. This meant we were able to take advantage of the Bath weaknesses, dropping on their pit and jumping like polo-ninjas between their arc players, giving us vastly more counter-attacks than them. We managed to convert two of these- including one absolute stunner from Shitbadge on the right post after a full length swim- and only conceded one; ending the quarter 2-1 to us and bringing the match to a nail biting 3-3 at half time.

The third and fourth quarters passed almost identically; with slightly messy defence of the deep end bringing the third quarter to a close at 3-6. This was closely followed by a slap-in-the-face comeback from Soton in the fourth quarter to end the game at a nail biting 7-6 to Bath.

The ladies are now gearing up for our BUCS tournament next Sunday, stay tuned for results!

Top Scorers;

3: Amy E

2: Sofia

1: Shitbadge

Major Queens;

1: Sophie

Man of the Match;

Shitbadge

Ladies 1st’s vs Bath (19/11/2014)