Hill and Kent strike to reel in leaders

Ashford men’s hockey

Ashford men’s 1sts drew 2-2 with Kent/Sussex Regional 1 leaders Holcombe 1A on Saturday. They dominated much of the game but fell 2-0 behind in the first half as a result of deflected shots that came off Ashford defenders.

Lewis Elgar narrowly missed Ashford’s best chance of the half after the ball had been worked into the D by Andrew Hill.

The second half was all Ashford. First Hill and then Ollie Kent took advantage of some shambolic defending by Holcombe to level the score at 2-2.

Ashford did have a chance to win the game late on, the ball broke to Elgar who drove the ball goalward only to be denied by a fantastic save by the Holcombe keeper.

Ashford 3rds pulled off an outstanding 7-1 win against Folkestone.

Within minutes they were 1-0 up. Matt

Carter hit the crossbar and from the rebound Frankie Andrew struck from the top of the circle into the bottom corner.

Carter made it 2-0 after being set up by Matt Goodwin before Folkestone pulled a goal back.

Ashford restored their two-goal cushion when Callum Warner played the ball into the circle for Alex Roach to flick it home.

Warner then had a shot saved by the keeper but Carter knocked in the rebound for a 4-1 half-time lead.

After the break, Goodwin scored with a reverse stick shot after being set up by Mike Wood and it was 6-1 when Goodwin drove along the baseline, beating two defenders and playing the ball across the face of goal for Warner to tap in.

The scoring was wrapped up by Carter with his second of the game.

Despite a dominant performance, Ashford Crusaders lost 1-0 to New Beccehamian in Kent Open Division 2. Ashford created numerous chances in the first half while containing the New Beccs threat.

Blane Wootton made several excellent overlapping runs into the shooting circle from the right flank.

Ashford’s control continued into the second half but it frustratingly remained scoreless. New Beccs snatched the winner with 10 minutes to go. The ball was transferred from the left to the right of the Ashford circle and smashed home into the bottom left hand corner.

The 4ths were beaten 4-1 at Canterbury

5ths. Two early goals from Canterbury put Ashford on the back foot but the visitors rallied, applying plenty of pressure resulting in a goal from Garry Mayan and a second shortly after which was then, after a lengthy discussion from the umpires, disallowed on a technicality.

The second half saw the Canterbury forwards show their strength with two more early goals but again Ashford fought back with determined effort from defenders Pete Boyd and Paul Brightling and plenty of shots on target. With delays in the game and a break due to flood light problems, it took the best part of two hours for the match to finish.