With lots of legs again this week, and following their win last week, spirits were high in preparation for the game against the young and quick students today. Whilst Kettering were realistic in the likeliness of going away with a win today, the vibe and atmosphere in the team was far from the defeatist one from previous games, and Kettering took the game to the students.
To start with Nottingham moved the ball well, but Kettering adopted a half press approach and maintained their patience, which ultimately forced the students to start making mistakes around the back, and not helped by the bouncy water-based pitch and the weather again. During the first 15 minutes of the game Kettering made some vital tackles and when in possession of the ball, put some decent passes together with tireless running by our own young-guns in Sophie Richardson, Imogen Smith, Georgie Jones and Megan Forader. Kettering went a goal down due to a slow, bouncing ball that just evaded our player of the match, Amy March in goal, and was a frustrating goal to concede based on the performance so far. This gave the students a lift and it wasn't long before they won a penalty corner which resulted in a well-worked routine seeing the player nip the ball in at the right post. Kettering didn't go to sleep though and soon won a penalty corner of their own and after a bit of knocking the ball back and forth, a strike from Sophie Reynolds was deflected into the goal by Charlie James, giving Kettering a deserved goal before half time.
A brief talk at half time, to basically keep doing what they were doing, and some inspirational words from Reynolds, ensured that the side went out ready to try to take something from the game. It was Nottingham that scored first though, from another short corner and although they continued to press, drawing some fine saves from March, Kettering did manage to get another on the score sheet as Reynolds drove in to the circle and punted for a hit that tucked itself neatly inside the left post.
With the score line being 3-2, and the students getting frustrated and making further mistakes around the back, Kettering should have capitalised on this but instead the game continued as was and in the end time ran out. Another good performance on the whole though, and despite the loss (which in reality was expected), the important thing was that the team are now looking like a team which is great for the remaining games of the season.