Photos: Ruth Gibson & Oliver Todd
The Inter-College tournament was an entertaining display of light-hearted mixed lacrosse for all abilities. Although Wentworth did not participate and Langwith were given automatic disqualification after arriving with only three players, the games commenced with Goodricke vs. Derwent. With the help of Krishna Balan who scored both goals for his team, Goodricke won the first game of the tournament 2-1.
The second game was a complete walkover as James enjoyed a storming 6-0 victory over a shaky Halifax side, with two goals each from Rolph, Russell and Robertson. While Alcuin kept the pressure on Goodricke in the third game of the day, they just couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net and it finished 1-0 after Balan scored another winner.
It soon became apparent that Halifax and Vanbrugh were well-matched and the score finished 1-1. Although Halifax had a last minute chance to sneak ahead solid goal keeping from Megan Phillips kept the ball out.
Next, Vanbrugh met James and lost 2-0, with Russell and Rolph with the goals. After, a single goal from Chris Menon was enough to give Alcuin victory over Derwent in the penultimate group stage game, leaving the latter to take on Halifax in the 5th place play-off.
Derwent took the lead in a somewhat comical fashion in the final match of the group rounds against Halifax. Harry Pampiglione’s long range effort required Ewan Chipping to poke the ball home. Halifax’s Sally Dolton made a desperate attempt to prevent the ball from trickling across the line but only succeeded in taking out herself and the entire goal in the process. Luke Shilling levelled for Halifax but Pampiglione then sealed both a 2-1 win and 5th place for Derwent.
The competition began to hot up at the start of the semi-finals. Vanbrugh and Goodricke were first up, and Vanbrugh achieved a controversial 1-0 win courtesy of a Jay Kim goal. The Goodricke players were unhappy after the final whistle, feeling that Angela Musoke’s goal was wrongly disallowed after the ball was adjudged to have hit her body.
The second semi-final was undoubtedly the most thrilling game of the tournament. It took extra time to separate James and Alcuin, with James eventually prevailing as 4-3 victors thanks to a hat-trick from Rolph, having heroically come back from 3-0 down.
Alcuin were therefore left to contest the 3rd place playoff with Goodricke, and it was no surprise that Krishna Balan made the crucial difference, scoring the only goal of the game in a well deserved 1-0 victory for Goodricke.
Then came the final, the game we had all been waiting for, between James and Vanbrugh. James took the lead through captain Izzi Mattick before Vanbrugh’s Anna Yeomans grabbed her side an equaliser. James had been prolific scorers throughout the day and not even this Vanbrugh side were able to stop them. Holly Biggins put James 2-1 ahead and then Munro Robertson rounded off the competition’s scoring, netting almost straight from the restart to make it 3-1 and hand James victory in this year’s competition.
“This was three years in the making, since we’ve finished as runners up in the last two tournaments,” said Robertson after the game. “There was good organisation from our captain and it was definitely deserved.” Hotshot Aaron Rolph added that, “The bitterness has now been replaced by glory,” as James discarded their tag as the ‘nearly men’ and celebrated in the sun.
