Lancs girls through to national final

SCHOOLS SPORT CATHERINE SMYTH STUDENTS from Haslingden High School and Alder Grange School helped the Lancashire Girls U14s side to two well-deserved victories.

Against Merseyside, in the Northern Counties League match at Skelmersdale, Lancashire won 8-0, and then also earned a place in the national final of the PlayStation EFSA Inter County Trophy after beating West Midlands 3-2.

In the match against Merseyside, Alder Grange student Rebecca Beresford was first to score after just two minutes, she also netted the team’s seventh goal.

Haslingden High School students Lucy Valentine and Beth Macdonald, were also picked for the team.

Just before half time, when the Lancashire team had already put six past the Merseyside goalkeeper and there had been an own goal, Beth gained possession, managed to get past their player and drove the ball into the top left hand corner of the net to make it 8-0.

Lucy said: “Although it was a good victory, I felt we didn’t play that well as a team.”

Beth added: “We are all amazing as individual players, but we don’t know each other’s play as well as we need to so we aren’t always able to interpret where each other is going to go.”

For the Merseyside game, the team allowed Katie Smith to be captain in honour of her grandfather who had recently died and who was a regular supporter of the team.

In the cup match, Lucy, Beth and Abby Clarke, from Haslingden High School, were all selected to play for the team along with Rebecca.

Abby started the match, Beth then came on as her substitute and Lucy was brought on in the second half.

Lucy said: “West Midlands scored about a third of the way through the first half and then we equalised. A few minutes before half-time they went ahead again.”

Following a tough team talk, the Lancashire team went out and pulled the score back to 2-2 and the match went into extra time of 10 minutes each way.

Rebecca scored the winning goal in the first half of extra time and fortunately the Lancashire team managed to retain their lead to the end of the game.

Lucy said: “It was a very tough game, especially because I was playing out of position. I am usually at centre mid and I was playing right wing which is not what I am used to.”

The final will be in Birmingham in May when Lancashire will play current trophy holders Kent.