U13 Girls have a Silver day at Surbiton
The U13 Girls & Boys entered the Surbiton HC Tony Smith tournament on Sunday. A tournament that welcomes teams from all over England; the level of both tournaments was very high. Entering into the top tier competition, Knole Park Girls made a great start to the tournament beating Wimbledon 1-0. The scorer was Bella Munoz. The girls then played one of the many Surbiton teams in the competition drawing 1-1 with Summer Knight-Thompson scoring. In the final group game, they played Spencer whom they beat 4-0. Goals from Summer (2), Charlotte Watkins and Celia Foster. Finishing top of the pool meant they were seeded for the knock out matches.
In the Quarter Final, Semi Final and Final they played a succession of Surbiton teams with all the matches finishing a tie and going to penalties. The 1/4 Final was 0-0 followed by a 1-1 draw (Scorer: Summer) in the Semi Final. The girls won the first two penalty shootouts, but their luck ran out in the Final! After a very dominant 0-0 draw, the penalties went to sudden death and unfortunately Knole Park pushed their final penalty flick wide and it was 4th time lucky for Surbiton HC! The girls had won the silver and had a fantastic day out. Bella Munoz was superb throughout, but it was the flying defender, Amber Croll, who won the team’s Player of the Tournament.
U13 Boys
In the boy’s competition, Knole Park made a great start beating Cheltenham 4-0 (Scorers: Isaac Dale (2), Ted Paice, Charlie Harrison) and Wimbledon B 3-0 (Scorers: Moritz Hippe (2) & Lars Hansen).
Up next was Surbiton. Despite a very dominant first half the boys couldn’t break the deadlock and unfortunately as Surbiton got more into the match they could! A two nil loss. Next up was Guildford. In one of the greatest U13 goalkeeping performances ever(!), the Guildford GK kept the Knole Park onslaught at bay, before their striker scored on the break to win to match 1-0. A frustrating loss, but congratulations must go to the Guildford GK. This left the boys playing off for 5th place. In their performance of the day, the boys were outstanding and ran out 2-0 winners (Scorers: Isaac & Lars) to claim 5th place. Isaac Dale was superb throughout the Tournament, but it was the development of centre midfielder Lars Hansen who grew into the tournament and won the team’s Player of the Tournament.
A great way to round off the first half of the season. Both teams can be extremely proud of how they played, their technical ability, their ambition to be brilliant and what they learnt throughout. We will be doing lots of goal-scoring practice in the new year!
Thank you to Surbiton HC for hosting such a great tournament!