Girls’ league finals day at Lochaber High School

FRIDAY June 10 saw nine high school shinty teams descend on Lochaber High to battle it out in the girls’ schools league finals day.

The development league, consisting of Plockton, Lochaber B, Ardnamurchan B, Kinlochleven/ Fort Augustus and Oban each played each other once during the group stages with a good standard of shinty on show for a development league and some very close games.

Lochaber A and Plockton ended the league on the same points and both progressed to the final. Competition between these two teams had been close all day and the final proved just that with the score after normal time being tied at two goals apiece. Five minutes’ extra time then took place with the golden goal rule in play. Lochaber had the best of the early possession and came close to scoring on two occasions but the Plockton defence held firm though and a nice passage of play up the field created the winning goal for them.

In league A, Lochaber A, Portree, Kingussie and Ardnamurchan A also all played each other once in the group stages. Portree went through comfortably to the final having won all of their games, and they were joined by Lochaber A.

The final was tied at 1-1 for a long time, but in the second half Portree’s Abby MacLean came into fine form, scoring and setting up a run of four goals in the final five minutes with a fantastic performance.

Congratulations to both Portree and Plockton, both teams playing splendidly through the day treating everyone to some wonderful shinty.

Commiserations to both Lochaber teams just being pipped to the post in both finals.