Tough loss for RSM women’s hockey
7:30am on Bottle Match morning – the RSM hockey girls were cruising across Cornwall with tunes blasting and everyone feeling nervous and excited. Some were so overcome with the excitement they couldn’t handle it and had a little nap.
The match began with the roar of the RSM crowd rightly drowning out the half-hearted CSM attempts at making a noise. The girls fought hard for the first seven or so minutes, with the defence putting up an amazing fight. Unfortunately CSM managed to get through and we conceded our first goal. Not to let anyone’s spirits get low the older girls yelled out encouragements and kept everyone’s heads up. Our new goalkeeper Qing Hua, who had only started playing a few weeks previously, kept her head in the game. CSM were quick and strong on the ball, making fast runs which kept our wingers Avni Patel, Yvonne Riley ,and Ruth Pike on their toes. Not much(ish) could get past our defenders and our fresher’s Minty Hampden-Martin and Elin Mars-Jones worked incredibly hard along with Bottle Match oldies Evelyn Mason and Beth Grant and put pressure on the CSM attackers, channelling them into the corners where our glorious RSM spectators voiced their approval.
Alice Tidswell dominated her central position, sending out some brilliant balls, and being downright amazing despite being fresh out of two injuries and having driven a minibus 300 miles the day before, along with Evelyn Mason and Ruth Pike (our hockey girls truly are the best). The champagne moment goes to her dive, which resulted in her saving yet another goal. Beth Grant, captain Emily Gusterson, and Louisa Young made CSM work hard and powered their way past players sending the ball up to RSM guru Beth Holman who showed off her stick skills alongside Yvonne where they gave the CSM defenders a fright in our attacking D.
In the second half we played our best hockey yet and went a full 15 minutes with good possession and a strong attack. Our defence made us extremely proud with fresher Elin earning Man of the Match and Evelyn, Naomi Tan, Minty, and Beth fighting hard right to the very end.
Sadly we lost the game, but we worked hard and (most importantly) had more fun.
(Special thanks to George Decaudaveine and Matthew Morris from RSM football who helped with subs).
