Royston Hockey Club round-up

ROYSTON IIs maintained their unbeaten start to the season with a 5-0 win over basement side Berkhampstead IIs on Saturday.

The league-leaders struggled to make inroads in the first half but took the lead through Nick Freeman’s deft touch.

Adam Mckenzie doubled the hosts lead on the stroke of half time with a well-taken goal before his team stepped up a gear after the break. Nigel Phillips capped a great performance with a brace while Freeman completed the scoring with another impressive finish. George Moffatt, Ed Hall and Mckenzie all impressed and are starting to show some real potential as their team made it six wins from seven so far this season.

The Men’s Is didn’t fare as well and went down 5-1 at Shefford & Sandy Is.

Royston were heavily depleted for this match and a head injury to Matt Allsop meant they had to play the majority of the second half with 10 men.

Dave Barker scored Royston’s only goal but they were left exposed on too many occasion and were duly punished by the hosts.

The Men’s IIIs suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat to Welwyn Garden City IVs to continue their bad start in Division 7SW.

Welwyn took the lead midway through the opening period with an accurate shot into the far corner which gave goalkeeper Dan Orme no chance. Welwyn were temporarily reduced to 10 men after one of their players was sin-binned and Royston took advantage by scoring the equaliser through Keith Markham.

Both teams pushed hard for the win but Welwyn converted a neatly worked penalty corner 10 minutes from the end.

The Men’s IVs were well beaten 11-2 by Vauxhall IIs.

Toby Hall scored Royston’s first goal while Michael Priest grabbed his first ever men’s league goal and, in truth, Royston really should have scored quite a few more but in the end this was certainly a day to forget.

The Ladies IIIs beat Vauxhall Chiltern 2-1

Royston went 1-0 up thanks to a powerful shot by Lucy Richardson. Vauxhall Chiltern then upped their game in the second half and made more breaks through, but were met with a wall of defence from Katie Ellard, Sarah Baker, Donna Williams and Sarah Holland. All was well until Sarah Baker went for a block, but ended up scoring an own goal. Royston knew they had to get it back and some fantastic team work from Lucy Richardson and Anna Worsey gave them the victory.