After a chaotic start to the BUCS season in London, the girls were ready to continue their winning streak by venturing out to the (not so) lovely city of Colchester in Essex. Without wanting to make the same mistake as last time we had a bright and early start after the breakfast of champions, formerly known as crepes, at Lucia’s house. We set off on our three-hour minibus trip (with a lucky few managing to sneak into cars). After a good 15 minutes of Michael driving the minibus around the car park trying to find parking, the girls were ready to get in and start playing, leaving time for some much needed toilet breaks. As always everyone powered through the usual warm up with some added few shooting drills. At 13:15 we were ready to go, with the boys’ team supporting us from the sidelines and simultaneously scaring the opposition.

Kicking the game off by setting the standard, Katie scored the first goal of the match less than a minute in, swiftly followed by a goal from Lucia whereas the home team couldn’t keep up! If they hadn’t already been nervous by our strong start, the hattrick from Magill that followed definitely would have haunted them enough. The Essex girls tried to improve their action, but they were just no match for our goalie Antonia and excellent defense tactics. Luckily for the other team the refs didn’t seem to notice any of their fouls- must’ve been invisible with how hard it was for us to work for winning a foul. This, however, didn’t seem to matter as in the last 30 seconds Jess buried the ball into the net, putting us up a lovely 6-0 at the break. After a few tips from the president, the girls jumped back in and were ready to go. A slightly less eventful second quarter saw one of the opposition being swiftly sent off but to be fair to them, I’d be getting quite flustered if I was playing against our team too. It wasn’t long until Katie scored her fifth goal of the day and Ella scoring her first of the match and first goal for the team! Despite her excellent defense so far, the lack of goals was getting to Lottie as she got sent out by the ref, but as soon as she got back in, she made sure to get us another goal into the net. We saw a last-minute goal once again by Katie, who was living up to her pre-match promise of as many goals as possible.

We were all chuffed at half time with 10-0 on our side, clearly having shown the boys what they had to live up to in their match against Essex boys. You would think by now the girlies would be getting worn out, but it wasn’t long into the third quarter that Lucia was scoring more goals; setting the example for Ellie to launch one in, another first goal from a fresher, well done! Unsurprisingly we saw even more goals from Lottie and Katie, who had been killing it all game and Antonia continued to keep up the great work in goal, keeping a nice and neat clean sheet. However, clearly in this quarter Lucia was on a roll in pit as every 30 seconds she scored for us; finishing with a hattrick at the end so that we had a beautiful 18-0 scoreboard to look at (when the refs finally got to changing it though).

With one quarter to go the girls powered through using their last bits of energy to absolutely obliterate the other team (sorry Essex, it was nothing personal). Whilst we were still on top form, this last quarter really let us have a bit of fun as we continued to set up arc after arc in attempts to get everyone to score. The Essex girls tried to put up their best fight but I’m afraid they just weren’t a match for us as we saw a beautiful goal from Molly (with the best celebration of the match) and three more consecutive goals from Magill, who may have just been showing off at this point, which must have upset Lottie as she earned another major which resulted in a penalty in the last minute. Thankfully Antonia was refusing to let go of her clean sheet and no goal was scored. With a minute to spare, Lucia put in our final goal, and we finished on top with a beautiful 23-0! I think by this point the Essex girls were keen to have us gone as we’d

definitely rattled their cages, and we celebrated our strong win with well-deserved Colin the Caterpillars whilst watching the Soton boys’ team.

Man of the match: None other than Lucia! Who managed to score an amazing 7 goals whilst playing a new position! (with a shoutout to Antonia for securing a clean sheet!)

Dick of the day: Lottie for getting the most majors and giving away a penalty.

Goals/ Majors

Antonia Neild 0/0

Jess Grace 1/0

Ella Evans 1/0

Molly Slade 1/0

Katie Magill 10/1

Lucia Ciardo 7/0

Ellie Roberts 1/0

Charlotte Ratledge 2/2

Neve Rowland 0/0

Match report written by Neve Rowland