Friday 17-11-2017 - 15:55

Another week of BUCS has passed and what a week it’s been. We’ve had wins, draws, losses, very questionable referee decisions, bad weather, red cards and to top it all off we’ve had a few minor injuries. But not to worry! Our teams didn’t let any of this affect them and as I knew they would, they bounced back after last week. They’ve returned to campus with a grand total of 14 wins, 1 draw and only 6 losses (based on results submitted on BUCS so far). How incredible is that?! I know that a few of our teams were a little disheartened at their results from last week, but in true Edge Hill style they came back this week better than ever! Now onto the match report…

The first fixtures of the day included our Men’s and Women’s Badminton teams. So let’s see how they got on. It was a mixed bag of results this week, but nonetheless we had fantastic performances from all players. Starting with our Men’s 1^st team. Their winning streak continued as they easily beat the University of Liverpool 6-2 in what was described as an explosive game! The Women’s 1^st team followed the exact same path, as they also won 6-2 against the University of Chester. It was yet another win for the girls and could’ve easily been an 8-0 win, but we’re all happy they ended the game on a win. Now you won’t believe this, our Men’s 2^nd team also won their fixture 6-2 against Bangor University!! After some brilliant cross court drops, net kills and diving shots (I’m pretending I know what I’m talking about here) they ended the game with a strong win.

Unfortunately three of our Badminton teams lost their fixtures. Our Men’s 3^rd’s lost 7-1 to the University of Liverpool. It was a great effort from all players, but they just couldn’t get the win. On a positive note, the doubles partnerships are starting to work well and they’re finding areas to improve and work on in training. Our Men’s 4^th team were unfortunate to lose against the University of Cumbria. We had some brilliant serves, followed by some powerful smashes. But it just wasn’t enough to get the win and the final score was 6-2. Onto the final Badminton game of the day, our Women’s 2^nd team versus the University of Liverpool. These were very close games and the improvement between the doubles partnerships was fantastic to see! They were unlucky to lose 6-2. Players of the matches included; Sam Pierce, Jodie Talbot, Will Moss, Will Foster, Jack Simpson and Olivia McCusker. Even though we had a few losses this week, the improvements are shown from the commitment all players show in training and in matches. Well done to all!

Onto Hockey. It was an eventful week for all of our teams and even included a few injuries, but we’ll get to that later. First off, we have our Men’s 1^st team who were playing away at the University of Liverpool. It was a hard fought win, but thankfully with early attacks from Edge Hill they managed to break the deadlock with a short corner. This rebounded to Andrew Shaw who finished very nicely into the bottom corner. The opposition put increasing pressure onto our defence, however they did amazingly well to keep them out and start another break to increase the lead to 2-0. Nick Fletcher scored with a straight drag. The opposition kept piling on the pressure as they were now 2-0 down and this lead to a shot from the top of the ‘D’ having an unfortunate deflection and ending up in the back of our net. Matthew Stacey was the guy in the way and this lead to Liverpool bringing the score back up to 2-1. Ahh, this was a close one. Would our lads be able to hold onto their lead?… Obviously they did!! Mid way through the second half, Matthew Stacey managed to dribble his way through 6 men (yes, 6!) and he lead the ball to Jac Horwood, who finished with a stylish chip over the onrushing goalkeepers side. It was now 3-1 to Edge Hill! More solid defending and some amazing saves from Tom Dodd meant that he kept the score at 3-1 to the final whistle. Man of the match went to Matthew Stacey (for obvious reasons) and a special shout out goes to Jones for making his first appearance for the team! D*ck of the day went to Jac Horwood for apparently getting annoyed to easily or “aggy” as the Hockey team put it.

Now for the Women’s Hockey teams. We’ll begin with the 2^nd team this week, who were playing away at the University of Cumbria. Our girls dominated throughout the game. The score at half time was 2-1, with goals from Sophie C and Emma S. After half time, the morale from every member of the team was super high and this helped them to really secure the win. Three more goals from Sophie C (2) and Mel meant that the game was ours. The final score was 5-2 to Edge Hill. Man of the match was awarded to Laura C, but more importantly (I know you’re all wondering), who got d*ck of the day? Well, we’re in for a treat this week as two of our players were awarded it for the same reason. Beth J and Sophie J repeatedly fell over throughout the game (I don’t know whether to feel bad or find it slightly funny) but either way, both well-deserved d*cks!

For the Women’s 1^st team, it was a slightly more contested game and surprisingly tough against the University of Manchester. Our girls faced A LOT of aggression and rough play throughout the game, as well as questionable referee decisions, but somehow they managed to keep their cool and got on with the game. Unfortunately they found themselves caught off guard and ended half time 1-0 down. Thankfully after the half time team talk, their morale was back up and our girls managed to get themselves back in the game and even the score out at 2-2. A great goal from Becca put Edge Hill in the lead at 3-2. A dramatic last minute twist saw the opposition score from a short corner in the last play of the game, making the final score 3-3. Goals were from; Becca, Jenny and Beth E. Beth was awarded man of the match and the infamous d*ck of the day went to Bethan S for doing the splits, yet somehow still managing to hit the ball (seriously don’t ask). The drama doesn’t end here. This game was full of injuries and one particularly bad one was Emily who suffered a neck injury. She’s claimed she’s fine and is ready for next week (I don’t think I’m able to convince her to have a week off as it’s Cup Week) but still, we wish her a speedy recovery!

Speaking of injuries, our Men’s 1^st Football team were also in the war this week. They faced UCLAN in their game and as we all know (aka HAVE to accept), it’s always a very heated game between these two. Right from the get go we had (bad) slide tackles resulting in two red cards for UCLAN and one red card for Edge Hill, we had penalties and to top it all off we had multiple injuries. Three of our players left the pitch injured. Including a groin injury, hip injury and a split lip (gross I know). The lads will probably say it’s worth it as they came away with a 3-2 win, but I’m not sure I would say the same! Thankfully our Women’s 1^st team had a much less dramatic game. They faced the University of Manchester and came away with an easy 5-1 win. Goal scorers included; Cara Bickett with 2, Chelsey Jukes with 2 and Mia Pemberton with 1. Amazing performances from all, well done!!

We’re nearly done now I promise (if you think it’s bad reading it, try writing it).

Our final team to brag about are our Men’s Rugby Union 2^nd team. Their opposition was Wrexham and it promised to be a challenging game from the start. Our lads have had a stop-start season so far, with many games being cancelled and rearranged, but they finally got a game at home and what a game it was! The game did start off slowly with Wrexham scoring an early penalty. However this didn’t affect them, as Josh Cochrane earned a brilliant break from the scrum carrying it over the line from 15 metres and put us back in front. Odhran Boyd and Callum Westlake made sure that Wrexham weren’t able to get back in the game by putting on a brilliant defensive turnover minutes before half time. This turnover managed to create a counter attack and with the most delicate of passes, Kieran Fraser sent Albert between the posts. At half time, the score was 14-13 to Edge Hill. After an inspiring team talk from their captain Callum Westlake, the 2^nd half started with a bang with an early yellow card for Wrexham. Edge Hill went on to score two more tries. One from a brilliant try into the corner and the other came from taking advantage of a man down with Josh Cochrane making a strong run and making a beautiful pass to Callum Westlake which gave him his first try in 3 years!!!! After a tough 15 minutes for our lads (including two yellow cards and two tries from Wrexham), Peter Dobson, described with the “feet of a ballerina”, side stepped two players to score a very well deserved try and this gained him man of the match. It was a fantastic performance from all the boys and the game ended 40-23 to Edge Hill woohoo!!

We also have brief summaries of our other BUCS fixtures from Wednesday:

• Our Men’s Football 2^nd team unfortunately lost 6-4 against UCFB
• Our Men’s Tennis turned it around from last week and beat Liverpool 10-2
• Men’s Basketball 1^st team we’re unlucky to lose 77-49 versus Manchester
• Our Netball 1^st team fought very hard to win 66-52 against Liverpool
• Men’s Rugby League 1^st’s won 40-22 versus Sheffield
• The Women’s Rugby Union 2^nd team easily beat Keele 40-10
• Our Netball 3^rd team won 56-23 against Cumbria
• The Netball 4^th team also won against Bolton 53-28
• Our Men’s Basketball 2^nd team unfortunately lost 52-41 to Liverpool
• And finally, Women’s Rugby Union 1^st team lost 21-15 to Manchester

It was another bag of mixed results this week for our teams and individuals. Amazingly, we’ve done so much better than last week and players have clearly been working VERY hard in training!! Well done to everyone involved, we’re SO proud of you.

It’s Cup Week again next week… So get ready, it’s going to be another crazy week!

#TeamEdgeHill