Our Last Prem Performance of 2024! (30/11)

At our home away from home in Basingstoke it was the girls turn to take on Birmingham again. With all 13 of us raring to go the first quarter began with Isobel narrowly missing the ball in the swim off. As the pace began to pick up, Ratledge soon got herself a major. Despite this the girls maintained their composure and carried on. Not long after, Birmingham decided they were fed up of the score being 0-0 and their number 7 scored the first goal of the match. The Birmingham number 11 then wanted the spotlight and scored 2 goals to end the first quarter with the score at 0-3. One of the girls’ best quarters of the year!

A wonderful pep talk from Captain Lottie and Coach Howard prepared us for the second quarter as the starting 7 took to the pool again. The quarter began with lots of lengths up and down, as for the first two minutes not a single goal was scored, major thanks to our amazing goalie, Neve. Birmingham however put a stop to this with their number 9 scoring the first goal of the quarter. Shortly after this their number 7 got kicked out but sadly this man-up went a little off the rails and no goal was scored. In a plea to put herself back in the good books (our bad books) she then scored her second goal under a minute later. Lottie, clearly unhappy about this, quickly countered this scoring our first goal and bringing the score to 1-5. After our celebrations ceased, Birmingham scored yet again. Our wonderful captain then received her second major for deciding to beef the Birmingham goalie and Birmingham made the most of their man up as Lottie had to swim the whole length of the pool to exclude herself complaining the whole time. Finally as the quarter was drawing to a close and half time was approaching Birmingham took one more opportunity to rub salt in the wound and scored one final time, ending the quarter with the score at 1-8.

Following a well needed half time rest, the third and most exciting quarter then commenced with a goal from Birmingham. Miss Lancaster then received a major and Birmingham’s number 7 took this opportunity to get her 4th goal in the net! Smithy, looking a little too proud of herself, then gained another major for Southampton. Must be a pit D thing. Birmingham’s number 7 struck again clearly their man-ups were taken a bit more seriously than ours, oops. This was followed by a flurry of goals, including one from our very own, Miss Bugnar. The quarter ended with a score of 2-15.

Following a nail biting swim off, Birmingham got off to a swift start scoring their next goal just over 30 seconds in to the quarter. This didn’t deter the girls as they tried to meet their captains wishes to keep the score under 20. Many attacks were had by both sides, Southampton showing their new and improved defence to continuously defend their goal. Birmingham put up a strong effort still as they then continued their winning streak and scored 3 more goals despite our valiant efforts in defence. The match finished on a final score of 2-19 to Birmingham.

The girls then hurried out (after a quick yap in the showers with the Birmingham girls), already running late, to attend their movember social! (I’ll let you readers guess which event the girls were more excited for that day). A wonderful match was played by the girls as they clearly showed all the progress they’d made across the semester. But I think its safe to say though the biggest triumph of the day was Miss Smith making it all the way back to Southampton without her car breaking down!

Most Valuable Player: Iris Bugnar for some amazing pit A work and for being one of two for our goal scorers!

Dick of the Day: Lottie for beefing the goalie and then the ref afterwards. Oopsie.

Goals/Majors:

Neve Rowland 0/0

Isobel Neighbour 0/0

Eleanna Fairhurst 0/0

Katie Smith 0/1

Elosie Viney 0/0

Alyssa Hadjiandreou 0/0

Immy Lancaster 0/1

Rosie Cuming 0/0

Mia Spencer 0/0