Long Sutton Hockey Club round-up
Long Sutton won the battle of the high-flyers in Division 2NW of the East League after a 3-2 victory at March on Saturday.
They made the trip to their second-placed hosts off the back of a big win the previous week and were soon on the offensive.
After a first long ball over the top from Josh Fyson, Sutton won the first short corner of the day within the first two minutes.
The game was certainly a tough one with strong challenges and good battles, but March were the first to get on the scoresheet as they went 1-0 up through a well finished slap towards the bottom corner.
Sutton weren't to be put down and came back at them as their equaliser came from one of the best team goals of the season.
A ball played down the line from Sam Gray found Josh Baker who, with a clever pass, picked out Sargeant making a great baseline lead. He then quickly squared to Frazer Watt at the top of the D who set up Dan Plant for a tidy deflected finish.
The first half came to a close all square with March being kept quiet by the strong defence of Jimmy Harrison, Fyson, Michael Donaghy and Luke Proctor with James Cliff between the sticks.
The second half started with the intensity dial turned up and it was Sutton who scored the third goal of the game.
A long ball found Baker just outside the D who was able to work a well timed finish on the backhand to finally find a way past the strong March goalkeeper.
March came back hard once more and were able to snatch an equaliser to leave the game evenly poised with 15 minutes to go.
The green midfield kept working tirelessly to produce the goods with Gray, McKenzie East, Watt and Olly Taylor all putting in a shift to find the winner which would come in a way unexpected of both sides.
The opposition left back, playing a slow ball across the back line, was easily picked off by Baker who rounded both the defender and goalkeeper to calmly finish into an open net.
Sutton then battled it out for the remaining minutes, making sure any loose ball was appropriately sent as far away from Cliff's goal as possible to secure an excellent win.
Long Sutton 2nds opened up a four-point lead at the top of Division 3NW after an excellent 2-1 home win against Cambridge University 3rds.
The start of the game brought upon a stark realisation for Sutton – playing a university side meant they were going up against a 15 deep squad of fit, fast and smart hockey players.
As such, the onslaught began on the home goal by the pacey wingers and, were it not for the valiant defending of Ben Hales, Tom Baguley, Stef Fox and Jack Smith, and the shot stopping ability of player of the match Alfie Bragington, Sutton then would have been chasing the game as well as shadows.
Instead, after a well-worked routine moving up the pitch, Cambridge took the lead after 10 minutes.
This woke Sutton up slightly and, as such, the play became more fluid but was still relatively slow compared to the swashbuckling speed that had been demonstrated in previous weeks.
Chances came, most notably to Alex Canham and Dan Batten, but both spurned them as the score remained 1-0 going into the break.
Sutton came out firing much quicker and almost immediately the game was flipped on its head.
Cambridge defended further and further back, allowing the midfield of Ed and Will White to stamp their authority on the game.
Luke Jackson, Eddie Hales and Sam Bartlett ran tirelessly all game and, all of a sudden, short corners were won and chances kept coming.
However, the momentum stalled when Ben Hales and Jack Smith both had a spell on the sidelines.
After weathering the storm of nine against 11, the ball was played up long and a short corner resulted from a good attack.
Fox decided to step up to the oche this time and sent the ball straight into the bottom corner to make the game 1-1.
Cambridge University tried to probe once more but, after some fine work from Canham up top earned yet another short corner, Batten was there to pick the ball and fire it home to give Sutton the lead with just three minutes to go.
There was just enough time for Braginton to cap off a fine performance with a triple save while Simon Clarke came onto the field to help shore up the defence and guide Sutton to victory.
The third team were 3-0 home winners against City of Peterborough 7ths thanks to goals from James Collingwood (two) and Andrew Shore. The ladies' first team lost 4-0 against Pelicans.
Long Sutton ladies' second team made it back-to-back wins after a 1-0 success against City of Peterborough 5ths on Saturday.
Sutton started well but it wasn't long before Peterborough pushed them back.
With long periods of play in the Sutton half, the defence of Claire Sisson, Emma Grosvenor, George Synnott and Penny Perowne were working hard to keep Peterborough at bay.
Goalkeeper Ellie Sandall - who had been a virtual spectator in the win against Wisbech - found herself with more to do which she dealt with.
With the luxury of a sub, Holly Murdock was introduced into defence which enabled Perowne to be moved into midfield and released Annabelle Giles into her more natural forward position.
Having soaked up a lot of pressure, a 16-yard hit out was taken by Sisson to Lillie Tegerdine, who had intelligently been keeping herself in space out on the right.
She played a fabulous through ball to Giles who sprinted at the City defence and keeper. To be fair the keeper did well, but Giles was determined and, when the ball spilled out to Aimee Betts, she made no mistake for the opening goal.
With Katie Whittaker working extremely hard on the left of midfield, Sutton were able to begin to release forwards Chantil Sinclair and Alison Whittaker, who were making intelligent runs, more into the game but the half ended with the slender lead.
The second half was a replica of the first with Sutton having to work even harder to maintain the lead.
Peterborough had numerous forays into the Sutton D but all shots were dealt with admirably by player of the match Sandall to secure victory.
