GU14 Ospreys Finish Season with a Win

GU14 Ospreys 7 - 2 Woking GU14 (H)

London SC & SE GU14 Tier 1B Pool A

Scorers: Fegan (4), Nendick (3)

Result: 7-2 (3-1 at HT)

The last fixture of Phase 2 of 24/25 season, of what has been hard work, finally arrived in the spring sunshine of Kingston Grammar. However, Ospreys approached the game with trepidation & minds (mainly spectators) could not help wander somewhere else (that required Ospreys to win whilst Marlow to lose to ease Surbiton’s passage to the finals).

Despite a few Ospreys being played out of their preferred positions, we dominated the game from start with crisp and accurate passing throughout. There were flashes of the team’s swashbuckling display in Phase 1 of the season. Our girls generally showed better technique and a broader range of plays. Fegan rewarded the team with two opportunistic goals simply by reacting faster to lend her stick at the right place/angle at the right time as early as the tenth & twentieth minutes. Both Nendick and Saksena had their chances and the former netted the team’s third before Woking reducing the deficit with a clean strike. Ospreys were 3-1 up at the break.

The girls kept up the tempo and ran riot with four goals in 20 minutes after the restart. Osprey’s pace simply overwhelmed Working’s midfield and defence. Fegan and Nendick helped themselves with two goals apiece - the pick of the match was Nendick’s breakaway after picking up a loose ball in Osprey’s final third to eventually beating the opposition’s keeper one-on-one for her hat trick.

Meanwhile, Fegan excelled in the absence of Henkes, Osprey’s top scorer of the season, by continuing with her own scoring sprees (adding to an overall haul of four goals in this game, five in total from the last two) despite a perfectly legitimate fifth goal being ruled out as the umpire failed to see the ball had crossed the line (even with the disapproval from the boisterous Woking supporters!)

Woking tucked in their second within a blink of the eyes (owing to a lack of concentration from our girls). If there were a sense of de ja vu – a repeat of the last 13 minutes of the H&W match from previous weekend – it simply didn’t happen as the whites finished the game on a 7-2 aggregate. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough as both Marlow & H&W, the league leaders prior to the Sunday game, registered narrow wins & finished the league a win/three points more than Ospreys.

2024/25 has been a largely successful season for Ospreys with two (narrow) losses and a +38 goal difference in ten league matches (three losses in total in all competitions & friendlies). All of girls should be proud as they have progressed individually and collectively with the match play experience. Disappointment right now for sure, but the narrow miss to the finals has whet their appetite for competitive hockey and their future winning ambitions. 

Looking forward to GU16! Enjoy the summer and see you all on the pitch next season.