Dean Close Prep School – NATIONAL HOCKEY CHAMPIONS!

21 May 2019

In the Trinity Term the U13 girls’ and boys’ hockey teams travelled to Nottingham to compete in the England Hockey In2Schools National finals. There were 10 teams in each competition, split into two pools of five. There are no semi-finals, so to get to the final your team has to win their group. The girls took the easy route; after three wins in their first three matches they were into the final with a game to spare. The girls won their final pool match too, to finish top of the group by six points. An amazing achievement in itself.

Meanwhile, the boys made slightly harder work of it, as they drew a pool game against Whitgift. With both teams confident of winning all other pool matches, it was going to come down to goals. The boys worked really hard to create as many opportunities as possible and put themselves in a good position, whilst knowing that the other results were out of their control. In the end it came down to goal difference with Dean Close winning the pool due to having scored one more goal than Whitgift!

In the final, the boys were against Bilton Grange, who are regulars on the circuit. It was a tight final but our boys held their nerve to win 1-0. On the other half of the pitch, the girls faced Weald of Kent Grammar School, from Tonbridge and came across an unbelievably good player, better than any of us have seen at this age. Wow! Sadly it wasn’t really a game as the one player was so dominant, but our girls fought to the bitter end and certainly made the Weald work hard for their win.

Head of girls’ games, Emma Bailey said, “What a day! To have one team in the National final in fantastic. Two teams in the National final, on the same pitch at the same time, was just so special. This was the first DCPS girls’ team ever to get to the final, so to finish 1st & 2nd in the country on the same day is an incredible achievement!”