Girls Lax Blues Thrash Bristol

Cambridge 14 – 5 Bristol

The Lax Blues continued their strong start to the season on Wednesday with convincing victory over Bristol at Queens’ pitches.

Despite initial panic at lacking a goalie and opposition to play against, kick off was only slightly delayed.

The team had to cope with a string of last minute injuries and illness, but this didn’t show on the pitch as Cambridge took control of the game almost immediately.

The first goal came from co-captain Laura Plant in the second minute after a misdirected pass was intercepted by the Light Blues, and Bristol were punished for their slack ball-handling skills.

The Lax team wearing their favourite t-shirts last year.

A few nifty goals resulted from some sharp centre draws by gritty northerner Alana Livesey. Their dominance was briefly dented by a couple of unfortunate yellow cards, which left Cambridge a woman down for two periods of two minutes, but the girls came into their own to keep calm possession of the ball against a strong Bristol side.

It was a credit to the successful training sessions that the team have enjoyed so far this term that they managed to run Bristol all over the pitch despite having one less player.

A brief scare came at half-time, as  Bristol took advantage of the disarray of the defence, giving them two quick goals in succession.

However, the threat did not last long; a Cambridge time-out did the trick as an ever responsive team came back and played some of the best threatening attack play so far this season.

Leah Schabas had a great game in the midfield on turnovers from goalie clears that had gone awry, while this game also saw the return of the legendary Ellie Walshe, enthusiastic Welsh international and ex-Cambridge Captain, who made her mark on the game by scoring a number of classy goals.

A final score of 15-4 continued Cambridge’s run of League-boshing, and the Kingfishers also succeeded in smashing Loughborough 23-2 in their away match.

Co-Captain Anna Harrison said that the game was “proof of the the strength of the team even in adversity.”