Report Author: Charlotte Ratledge

Game: Southampton Women vs Surrey Women

Location: Jubilee Sports Centre, Southampton

Score: 10-0

Date: 20/2/22

SUWPC ladies arrived to the pool for their last match of the season with the hopes to secure their place as second in the league. Having beat Surrey twice already in both a BUCS and cup match the girls began their warm up with high spirits if not a little apprehensive due to the fact that they were missing a rather important player – the goalie.  Thankfully, Antonia arrived just in time to with a round of applause from both the team and their pool side supporters. 

The match began with Rhia winning the swim off, despite making many claims she would lose them all. A lovely pass from Natalia to Captain Katie saw Soton on a strong first attack but due to a high shot on goal from Charlotte, Surrey now had possession and made their own attack. This was quickly shut down by Char who intercepted the ball and swam back up the pool, gaining a man up in the process and giving Katie the ability to score the first goal of the match. After some great defense and a lot of swimming back and forth up the pool, including a penalty for Soton that was unfortunately saved by Surrey’s goalie, an excellent block by Natalia put Soton back in possession and Char was then able to score the second goal of the day. A great save from Antonia gave Surrey the corner and another chance to shoot, but nothing was getting past Soton’s goalie today. A quick intercept from Fresher Emily lead her to swim the full length of the pool, ending up in front of the goal with not 1 not 2 but 3 defenders but this still wasn’t enough as she still managed to launch the ball into the back of Surrey’s net. Her first goal for the team bring the girls score up to 3. A failed attempt by Surrey to score with 10s remaining left the first quatre 3-0 to Soton. A great start!

The second quatre began with Rhia winning another swim off but a save from Surrey meant we were back on defense. This was short lived as Katie gained the ball and was able to pass the it off to Rhia who then scored. Both teams were strong on defense and this made for a slow quatre with a lot of lengths being swam but Katie was clearly fed up with continually swimming up the pool and so scored another excellent goal. Three consecutive saves by Antonia now meant we ended the second quatre with a score of 5-0.

A very close swim off gave Surrey the ball but with both teams refusing to back down and some excellent saves from Antonia who was clearly determined to keep the ball out the net, we were once again left swimming lengths of the pool. Thankfully the girls were saved again by Katie who scored her third goal of the match. After lots of shots and saves from both teams, Soton finally got a penalty when Surrey seemingly forgot that you can’t just sub in from any part of the pool. This penalty was of course taken by Captain Katie who scored a brilliant goal. The quatre ended 7-0 to Soton.  

The final quatre was then under away with Rhia once again winning the swim off. Several shots where once again had by both sides but it seemed Surrey where just as determined as we were to keep the ball out of the net. leading to the first Soton major and an otherwise quite 3 minutes.  However, a great pass from Antonia to Katie at the opposite end of the pool gave way to the first goal of the quatre. 8-0 to Soton. After a drive up the pool Surrey had what looked like their first goal of the match, however their shooter jumped off the bottom of the pool, so no goal was awarded. Looked like Soton was still on for a clean sheet. Another goal from Katie with 2 minutes left meant Southampton had this in the bag.  However Emily clearly wasn’t happy with a single digit score and proceed to score her second goal of the match with one minute remaining. A final Major to Claudia in the last 30 seconds to end the match with a flourish meant the final score was 10-0 to Soton.

 Celebrations were had as we had officially secured our place as second in the league and with a short and sweet speech from Captain Katie, congratulating everyone on our improvement across the season, it was time for a group photo. It was then off to Stags where it was announced that the first round of drinks would be on the club, which got a louder applause than winning the match!

Well done on a great year ladies!

Man of the match

We’ve got a tie. Antonia for some excellent saves leading to the only clean sheet in the league so far and Emily for scoring her first two goals for the club. But it could have gone to whole team who all played incredibly well.

Dick of the day

Once again the scoreboard for having a breakdown mid match (we were clearly scoring too many goals for it to keep up).

Names – Goals/Majors

Antonia Neild – 0/0

Rhia Perks – 1/0

Emily Bownes – 2/0

Char Davis – 1/0

Claudia Ellis-Bone – 0/1

Katie Magill – 6/0

Megan Harvey – 0/1

Natalia Tsouka – 0/0

Charlotte Ratledge – 0/0

Lucia Ciardo – 0/0

Georgia Skelton – 0/0

Jasmine Brown – 0/0