The Cambridge South Ladies 3s arrived at St Ives ready for action, although the pre-match challenge of finding a parking space nearly proved to be the toughest contest of the day! Parking aside, the team were ready with plenty of time to spare so had a good pre-match debrief; spirits were high. 

From the first whistle, South came out with fantastic energy, putting St Ives under pressure and making their presence felt in the attacking half. The 3s were hungry, determined and working hard to make things happen. 

Defensively, the 3s put in a tremendous shift. Selene coped incredibly well with St Ives’ pressure on goal, Jess K seemed to find pockets of space absolutely everywhere, while Jess P proved herself time and time again, shutting down so many of the St Ives attempts. Louisa held firm on the left defensive wing, and Annabel and Shree were both causing all sorts of problems for the St Ives attackers. Hannah delivered some wonderful balls up the pitch - her excellent distribution and eye for space led to her well earned POM nomination!

The midfield and inners deserve a special mention, too. Katie, Vinnie, Lou and Hattie working tirelessly with each of them putting in the work, chasing down opportunities and looking to build attacks whilst supporting the defenders. Though, special mention has to go to Katie for her record breaking attempt at taking down the opposition (2 ankles in 30 seconds) - quite the achievement!

Unfortunately, St Ives are a team who have played together for years, and that experience showed. They seemed to know exactly where their teammates would be at any given moment, making them a difficult side to contain. St Ives managed to sneak in their first goal early on, but that did little to dampen South's spirits. As the match progressed, they found their rhythm and the goals began to come. One for St Ives, then another, then another…

WAIT! A SOUTH GOAL! 

And what a goal it was! Hattie delivered a beautiful ball up to the top right of the pitch, where it was slotted across the D and straight into Steph's path. Cool, calm and composed, Steph made no mistake and sent it straight into the back of the net. A fantastic bit of teamwork and a well-deserved moment of celebration for the 3s! Unfortunately, the excitement of scoring proved a little too much for me, as I immediately forgot the basic rules of hockey and attempted to take the St Ives push-back for them, earning me today’s LOM (I’ll pretend I was just making sure everyone was still paying attention). 

With the celebrations over, St Ives continued their scoring spree with another, another and, you guessed it, another. Despite the scoreline, South kept their heads up and continued to battle, showing no shortage of effort, energy or determination.

While St Ives ultimately found the back of the net more times than we would have liked, South demonstrated fantastic defensive work, determined midfield play and some promising attacking pressure. The team worked hard across the pitch, and Steph's goal was a brilliant example of what we can produce when we link up and move the ball well. Overall - we may not have come away with the result we wanted but it was a tough match against a well-established St Ives side and there was plenty for us to take in.