Wight Eagles U12 Girls played Winchester City Flyers Herons U12s in their first home fixture of the Hampshire Girls League on Saturday (6th November), but it was Winchester who took the win at Queensgate Primary.
The Eagles started the game bright with very solid defending at the back with Ellie, Faith and Poppy not giving Winchester any room to get the ball out of their feet. On every attack the girls were there to cut out play and protect Eloise in goal. Eloise didn’t have much to stop in the 1st half though with Winchester only getting a handful of shots off, but nothing to worry the Eagles keeper.
It was a very end-to-end first half and the Eagles had most of the possession with some great link-up play from Lyla down the right-hand side, working well with Ellie. The girls really started to make dents in the Winchester side with a solid partnership in the middle of the pitch from Olivia and Mesha (new signing). Olivia found herself 1-on-1 with the keeper and calmly slotted home to make it 1-0, only to turn around and see that the flag had already been raised for the first half.
The second half saw a few substitutions made and the game was starting to turn. Faith and Poppy had more work to do at the back and linking up wasn’t working so well.
Olivia was trying to find space but Winchester started to pull through midfield and created some chances, winning a couple of corners. The Eagles then switched on and had chances down the other end to seal the game but couldn’t find a way through. Lyla kept chasing them down and getting crosses there but nothing coming from them.
The Eagles were pushing but Winchester broke through and scored to make it 0-2 – heartbreaking for the Island side. With about 5 mins left a loss of concentration allowed Winchester to lift the ball over Eloise to finish the game 0-2 to the visitors.
Manager Dan Verstraeten said:
“We came into this game having not played for a month on a competitive scale so it wasn’t going to be easy for the girls, who have been waiting so long for their first league game. They didn’t deserve to lose today – they played like winners and the future is an exciting one for this bunch”.
Starting 11 – Eloise, Ellie(c), Faith, Poppy, Lyla, Olivia, Mesha, Summer, Imogen
Player of the Match – Lyla
