The Wight Eagles Under 12 squad started the second half of the new season at the weekend with a shake-up of the league system, which saw them move from Division 3 – in which they finished 3rd – to the new Hampshire Division B.
They wanted to carry on from where they left off – unbeaten at the end of last year. However, the girls hadn’t played many games since December due to COVID isolations and teams being unable to travel to the Island. Despite this, they didn’t fail to perform when they came up against Pace U12s on Saturday.
The Eagles put Pace under pressure straight from the off and the Eagles’ quick wingers put balls across for Imogen to test Pace’s keeper.
As play went on towards halftime, Island keeper Eloise didn’t have much to do as the strength of the Eagles’ back 3 didn’t let her down. She went into halftime with a clean sheet.
The Eagles came out for the second half and the only thing that was lacking was the end product, as the crosses kept on coming into the box as Lyla was tearing up the right hand side. The Isle of Wight side kept knocking on the door but couldn’t find a way through.
The last 10 minutes saw Pace break in behind and they secured a couple of last-minute corners, but solid defending again saw the Eagles hold on.
Wight Eagles 0 – 0 Pace
Player of the Match: Mesha Gough
Manager Dan Verstraeten said:
“It wasn’t the start to the new season that we really wanted. It was points dropped but a point is better than none at all.
“The girls again put in a top performance as they always do and we were very unlucky, just let down by our finishing today.
“We hope we can take all 3 points when we travel away to Stubbington on Saturday 5th February”.
