After the 3-3 draw last week Slaz were looking for a win and repeat of their 4-1 success in the Driffield away fixture earlier this season. Unfortunately due to players being unavailable/injured Slaz only had 11 players from their normal squad and were forced to rely on the goodwill of the 3rd team for the subs bench. Katie, Alex and Hannah are to be congratulated for performing admirably given the step up in the level of hockey they had to face.
The home side again started strongly after some worldly wise words from the injured Amanda Sowerby (definitely not a sapper) and once again were the first on the scoresheet when a strong strike from Sarah Cooper was tipped in (allegedly) by Jessica Rudge.
Slaz continued to attack with a high amount of possession with some superb driving runs by Sarah Hobbs and Driffield’s attempts to attack were thwarted by the defence. Driffield were denied an equaliser as Heather Bates made an excellent save on the line. Slaz then went 2-0 up as Ailish Hendry fired an unstoppable shot from the edge of the D but allowed Driffield to come back and score before the half time break to bring it to 2-1.
The second half started strongly again but Driffield were determined to pull back their defecit and soon narrowed the gap to 2-2. A period of frantic end to end play saw Sarah Cooper put Slaz ahead with 10 minutes to go but unfortunately some minutes later Driffield were awarded a flick. Goalie Eleanor Townend who was recently selected for England Masters Team, disappointed the opposition by going the right way to make the save. However when play continued, Driffied took advantage of some defensive confusion and levelled the scores once more. Despite Slaz sterling final efforts the game ended 3-3 but the plus side was that this is enough to take Slaz to 6th place in the table. Man of the match was jointly awarded to Claire Mills and Eleanor Townend.
Slaz now look forward to a double header against Roseberry and Newcastle and much welcome the return of Hayley Wood to the line up.
