Magpies through to national final

Harleston Magpies U18 Girls won the East Indoor Club Finals at Colchester to qualify for the National Finals at Sheffield on January 23 and 24.Magpies started with a comfortable win against Saffron Walden 6-0 with goals from Cherry Seaborn 2, Verity Blyth 2, Lauren Barber and Bryony Lund.

Harleston Magpies U18 Girls won the East Indoor Club Finals at Colchester to qualify for the National Finals at Sheffield on January 23 and 24.

Magpies started with a comfortable win against Saffron Walden 6-0 with goals from Cherry Seaborn 2, Verity Blyth 2, Lauren Barber and Bryony Lund. Sudbury were beaten 7-0 with the goal scorers Cherry Seaborn 2, Bryony Lund 2, Verity Blyth 2 and Emily Wilford.

The first crunch game came against Chelmsford and in a tight first half Magpies led 1-0 at half time thanks to Cherry Seaborn. In the second half Magpies became stronger and increasingly dominant as short corner goals from Bryony Lund and Cherry Seaborn confirmed their superiority.

In the final game against Canterbury Magpies took an early lead through Cherry Seaborn but Canterbury hit back to level the scores. Calianne Clark was in excellent form in goal dealing with the Canterbury penalty corners and in the end Magpies again dominated the second half with goals from Emily Wilford 2, Verity Blyth and Bryony Lund.

Magpies worked really hard as a team and that is reflected by the fact that they only conceded one goal in four games and were superbly led by Bryony Lund as captain.

Magpies are now faced by a real problem as for the first time ever England Hockey have arranged the finals on the same day as the first team are involved in crucial Indoor League Division 1 matches and as many of the U18s play in the first team it is unreasonable to penalise either team.

Squad: Bryony Lund (Capt), Calianne Clark, Lauren Barber, Amy Brook, Rebecca Banham, Laura Tibbenham, Emily Wilford, Verity Blyth, Lucy Chubbock and Cherry Seaborn.