Shiplake's hockey 1st team turned in the performance of the week, with a comfortable 3-0 victory over local rivals Henley College. The football 3rd XI continued their good start to the season with another victory as they remain top of their table, while the 4th XI opened their account with a 10-goal win. The girls' netball team continued their development with a home fixture against Queen Anne's School.
Hockey
Shiplake College 1st XI 3-0 Henley College
Having come in to the match on the back of last week’s disappointing loss, the team were eager to get a win. However, the game started fairly slowly and it took a few dangerous attacks from Henley College for Shiplake to realise that the opposition had some strong players capable of breaking down the defence.
The last minute rule of the youngest player taking the first shot on short corners left us slightly confused, but Tim Herbert stepped in as shot taker and fired in several attempts which narrowly missed the goal. Midway through the first half, Rory O’Connor opened Shiplake’s account for the season with a scrappy finish from close range. This gave Shiplake something to build upon and flowing hockey soon emerged. This was shortly followed by skilful play from Harry Marsden to wok the ball into the ‘D’ for Tim Herbert to score on his debut.
At half time the team was pleasantly surprised by orange segments, which gave us a vitamin boost ahead of the second half. Mr Walter also gave an inspiring speech which spurred us on for the second half. This led to a cracking goal from Rory O’Connor who fired in a shot from the top of the D. The final score was 3-0 to Shiplake. The man of the match award goes jointly to Tim Herbert and James Smith for putting 100% into the game and being the youngest players to play in a Shiplake 1stXI shirt.
Shiplake 2nd XI 1-4 Cokethorpe
Cokethorpe is not a hockey school but they have one senior team which includes several players who play club hockey at the weekends. As a result, they are quite a useful side! Having endured a 1h 20min journey, the 2nds were sluggish and lost out on all 50:50 balls, slow to react to danger, didn’t pick up runners and generally looked lost in the first half. As a result, we let in an early goal and ended up 3-0 down at half time. After some stern advice and soul searching during the half time talk, we looked a different side in the second half and managed to soak up a lot of the pressure. Harry Emmanuel was imperious at centre back. As a consequence, it was honours even in the second half with both sides scoring just a single goal thanks to a speculative shot from outside the D from Jamie Lewis which, thanks to the new rules, went in off a defenders stick and a goal was given. Overall then, it was a mixed performance by us but we came up against a stronger side which caught us napping at the start.
Dr Bob Snellgrove
3rd XI vs Lord Wandsworth College and Leighton Park
The mighty 3rd XI have now had two matches this season and the headline news is that they have scored a goal! Last Wednesday saw us visit rural Hampshire to take on the Lord Wandsworth Colege 4th XI. Things were looking good at half time with a score of 2-1 to the home side. A goal from striker Freddie Davis did wonders for the team’s spirits and a number of near misses from short corners were also encouraging. Daisy Gill contributed to a well-organised midfield and skipper Hamish Webb led from behind (in goal).
The second half saw Shiplake give away two further goals, the final one in the dying minutes of the game. Considering this was only the second time some of the players had set foot on a hockey pitch (although Harry Geisler is an experienced ice hockey player!) the team did extraordinarily well. The calm and level-headed experience of Harry Emmanuel, the ‘rock’ in defence, was much appreciated but will, we fear, ensure his elevation to greater things.
The transfer window (Dr Snellgrove seems to think it is always open) robbed the team of Harry Emmanuel for our second game, this time at Leighton Park. This was end-to-end stuff and a real test of stamina; a test that striker Freddie Davis nearly failed! Jack Leigh stepped into the large shoes of Emmanuel and provided excellent defensive cover. Geisler and Van Der Lely continued their steep learning curve at the back and produced some solid tackling. Gill moved up front to join Davis and Oliver Walker filled her place in midfield. Adib Wain and George Nicheli worked well on both wings.
The game could have gone either way but unfortunately Leighton Park took their one chance where we did not. Skipper Webb played a large part in keeping the score down with some superb saves and effective clearances.
Next week we play Pangbourne; bring it on!
Mr Nick Brown
Football
Shiplake 1st XI 1-3 Cokethorpe School
Following a heavy defeat
last week, Shiplake’s senior side put in a much improved performance against
Cokethorpe and were unlucky not to claim their first point of the season. With
the score tied at 1-1 entering the final 5 minutes of the match, Shiplake were
dealt two late blows to lose in a cruel fashion, but have plenty of positives
to take into the season ahead.
After impressing for the 2nd
XI last week, several new faces were called up to the 1sts and rewarded the
coaches’ faith with excellent individual performances. The pick of the bunch
was Year 12 pupil Adam Hunt, who produced a man of the match display on the
wing, threatening the Cokethorpe defence with a number of menacing runs. Other
debutants included Year 11 Miles Bridgman, who showed glimpses of quality, and
James Bailey who defended resolutely at left back.
After working hard on
zonal marking in training, Shiplake were disappointed to concede from the first
corner of the match, as a deep cross was nodded into the bottom corner by the
influential Cokethorpe skipper. To their credit, however, the defence were very
well-organised on set pieces for the remainder of the match and did not ship
any more goals in this fashion.
Cokethorpe continued to
press, with excellent passing moves through midfield creating further chances.
After home goalkeeper Callum Heppner-Logan was finally beaten, the post came to
his rescue and the scored remained 0-1. Shiplake grew in confidence as the half
went on and grabbed a deserved equalizer. Lone striker Van Raalte powered down
the left-hand channel and after his cutback was only partially cleared, captain
Freddie Ireland smashed the ball home for his third goal in two games. Shiplake
could have gone into the break in front, but reliable centre back Tom Banks
headed a great chance over the crossbar.
The second half was a very
even battle, with neither side creating many clear cut chances. Audacious
chipped efforts from Ireland and Bridgman were as close as Shiplake came to
finding a winner, with Heppner-Logan pulling off a magnificent one handed stop
at the other end.
In the latter stages of
the match, Shiplake legs grew weary and the failure to track a midfield runner
proved costly as Cokethorpe fired in the deciding goal. They added a third in
the dying minutes to confirm their victory, leaving Shiplake to rue what might
have been.
Man of the Match: Adam
Hunt
Shiplake 2nd XI 2-4 Cokethorpe School
Will Clarke and Nick
Burnage scored the goals for Shiplake but they were undone by a more clinical
Cokethorpe side who ran out 4-2 victors.
Shiplake 3rd XI 3-1 Cokethorpe School
Scorers: James Sloman, Ben Arnold, Ruaridh Sheppard (Pen)
Shiplake 4th XI 10-2 Leighton Park
Shiplake’s 4th XI opened their season in superb fashion, with a great attacking performance yielding a double figures victory.
Scorers:
Emeny
Vizard 2
Fletcher
Rowan 2
James
Leach
Williams
Own goal
Shiplake U15A 3-2 Our Lady’s Abingdon
Goalscorers: Parton and Jones (2). Man of the Match: Elliot Jordan
Netball
Shiplake College 1-20 Queen Anne’s School
Written by Emily Dewell & Kate Horn
On
Wednesday, Shiplake girls’ netball
team played against Queen Anne’s. This
was our second match of the season, and with only having two training sessions,
we were working on building our teamwork skills, and of course trying to
improve our physical skills such as footwork and 3m distance defending.
Kate Kononenko scored our one and only goal (the first one of the match) and this was thanks to a very strong supportive attacking team; built up of a mixture of Year 12 and 13 girls. Our defence was just as competitive, striving to steal the ball at every opposition centre. Both teams played exceptionally well, we have improved since our last game, and hopefully we continue to do so, but unfortunately Queen Anne’s took the victory this time.
Player of the match: Lucy Collins
