On Friday, 14th October also saw an opening fixture for our u14 Minor boys’ hockey squad – also against a visiting St. Andrew’s minor squad. Helped by several 1st year’s and led capably by captain Oliver Graham the boys settled into some excellent passing routines early on which stretched the visitors without causing real damage at the coalface. Oliver and his midfield crew of Rudi Lacy and Zhanting Ye worked tirelessly to limit the advances of the boys in blue and white, and with some clever rotations the patterns were being broken up again and again.
Marcelo Malpica, Sean Rouxel, and Daniel Ryan kept a mean defense, while under quite a bit of increasing pressure as the first half rolled on but this pressure eventually started to tell as St. Andrew’s strikers started to get in behind our back four regularly with clever slip passes – testing Johann Schmitt’s pace and vision and giving double-game hero Ben Rauch too much to do between the posts.
In the end the boys shipped 5 against a quality St. Andrew’s minor squad but goal of the game came from captain Oliver with a beautiful baseline slip to the waiting Alex Collins (1st year) who tucked away a handsome diving deflection to register the first St. Kilian’s boys’ goal of the new campaign.
Final score 5-1 but promise abounds and more work planned.
Dave Broderick
Hockey Coach
