ASA National Championships
14 March 2009 Walsall
This years event saw four teams entered: us, City of Liverpool, Carlisle WPC and City of Birmingham. The qualifying round saw every one play each other over half games with the top two placed teams going through to the Final on 25 April at MAC.
First game was against City of Liverpool who took an early lead, before Ella Chadderton equalised with just over two minutes left in the first half. A tightly fought period was finally won with two goals in the last minute from Alex McKevitt and a long shot from Casey Smith. The second half saw a controlled performance and we increased our lead with further goals from Alex and Ella. Although Liverpool pulled a couple of goals back in the last ninety seconds we saw out a win 5 3.
Next up were Carlisle who had drew a hard game with City of Birmingham. Again we managed to go behind with Carlisle opening up the scoring after 90 seconds but played well and scored four without reply with a hatrick from Ella and one from Casey to finish up 4 1 at half time. Carlisle came back well and scored twice in the first minute of the second half to bring the score back to 4 3 but then further goals from Casey, Ella and Megan Smith took us to a 7 3 lead. Carlisle pulled a goal back just before the last minute which meant we finished up winning 7 - 4.
The final game of the day was against City of Birmingham and unusually we managed to score first this time in fact two goals from Ella in just over a minute gave us an excellent start. City of Birmingham pulled a goal back mid way through the half but a further two goals from Ella and one from Alex gave us a comfortable 5 1 lead at half time. Another two goals from Ella followed by one from Ellie Jones gave us an 8 1 mid way through the period. City of Birmingham scored with just over a minute to go the final score a win 8 2.
This was a great team performance with everyone playing their part. We are now through to the Final to defend our title against local rivals City of Liverpool at MAC on 25 April.
Team: Jade Smith(gk), Casey Smith, Ella Chadderton(capt), Alex McKevitt, Courtney Dean,
Jess Jackson, Helen Rex, Josephine Costello, Natasha Grundy, Aeron Brown, Megan Smith,
Ellie Jones, Sally Evison
Coach: Julie Allsopp/Tim Dunsbee
Team Manager: Debbie Smith/Fiona Dean
