Petersfield Hockey Club’s ladies’ first team finished their title-winning campaign with an impressive 4-2 win at Portsmouth.

Portsmouth won the toss and took first push back, but Petersfield started well with Anna O’Kelly quickly intercepting a pass. Controlling play through the middle and quickly breaking into the Portsmouth shooting zone, Anneka Greenaway helped Petersfield apply pressure to the Portsmouth defensive line. From a long corner the ball was fed to Daisy Day, who drove it along the baseline and found O’Kelly waiting on the penalty spot to slot the ball behind the keeper and score the opening goal seven minutes in. Petersfield kept up the pressure and moved the ball fluidly in and around the D to find new angles of attack, including shots from Zola Thomas and Fizz Easton. Alex Thomas doubled Petersfield’s lead 21 minutes in when she hit the ball into the corner, beyond the reach of the Portsmouth keeper. The hosts pulled a goal back with a quick shot at the top of the Petersfield D, but the visitors led 2-1 at half-time.

Petersfield started the second half brightly and Georgie Stratton-Brown weaved through five Portsmouth players to find herself one-on-one with the home keeper. Stratton-Brown quickly dragged the ball inside to her left and tapped it around the last line of defence to make it 3-1. Portsmouth capitalised on a break to make it 3-2, beating young keeper Alex Temple on the third deflection. Petersfield won a number of short corners in the second half. Day injected the ball to Emily Thomas who drove the ball in from the top of the D and slipped the ball in front of the keeper to Alex Thomas on the far post, who scored Petersfield’s fourth. Petersfield finish the season top of the league with 63 points and a plus 96 goal difference.

Petersfield’s ladies’ second team finished their season with a hard-fought 1-0 win against Hamble to seal a fifth-placed finish. Petersfield had two goals disallowed, but their pressure eventually told and Stratton-Brown finished off an excellent team move to score the only goal of the game.