M1 Secure Premier First Place Finish
By Colin Pike
Surbiton Men beat Brooklands Manchester University 7-0 to seal their second successive first place finish in the Men's Hockey League Premier Division.
Surbiton have qualified for the Euro Hockey League in 2021.
They also kept their second successive clean sheet after a 5-0 win at East Grinstead last Sunday.
Surbiton took sixteen minutes to break the deadlock, Ben Boon scoring from open play before Luke Taylor scored the first of four penalty corner conversions in the 18th minute.
Alan Forsyth troubled the scorers in the 22nd minute from open play and that was the end of the scoring in the first half.
Taylor was back on target in the 39th and 46th minutes to extend Surbiton's lead to 5-0. Forsyth notched his second goal of the game with four minutes left and Taylor completed the scoring a minute later, meaning that over the two matches, Surbiton scored 19 goals to Brooklands' nil.
To Surbiton's credit those matches are the only games this season that Brooklands have failed to score in and the 12-0 defeat ended a run of 30 successive regular season matches that Brooklands had scored in.
Hampstead moved above Wimbledon into second place with a 6-3 home win over the University of Exeter.
Wimbledon lost ground after they lost 3-2 at Beeston.
Old Georgians were due to play East Grinstead and Holcombe were scheduled to host Reading in Saturday night's matches.
Surbiton visit Beeston next Sunday (8 March) at 2 pm.