Pendle Forest earn draw against Leeds University

PENDLE Forest first team played at home against second placed Leeds University last Saturday.

Despite a strong resilient start from Forest, Leeds University capitalised on strong forward play to score in the first 10 mins. Forest regrouped and pressed forward putting the Leeds defence under significant pressure. This resutled in a penalty corner and good interplay between Deb Bythell and Cathy Waters led to Waters scoring Forest’s first goal. Forest continued to press and excellent play from Olivia Bythell and Hayley Baines saw Baines score a reverse stick goal to put Forest a goal ahead. The second half saw PF soak up the pressure with timely saves from player of the match Kat Gorman and strong defensive work by the Forest back four. Forest ttempted to attack several times but Leeds were strong and very fast down their right side and turned the ball over seeing themselves rewarded with several penalty corners, one of which they finally converted in the last 90 seconds of the game. PF showed good team resilience and were disappointed with the result.

Pendle Forest 2nds were away at Longridge on Saturday .Pendle started the game well and found themselves

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in front within the first 10 mins with a goal from open play scored by Judith Hind .Pendle continued to dominate and scored again shortly after from a short corner by Janet Mitchell -Stanworth. Pendle scored twice more before the end of the first half with goals from Rachel Bradley [Crawford] and Janet Mitchell -Stanworth . After the break Pendle Forest came out determined to capitalise on the scoreline .Pendle played some impressive hockey and it wasnt long before they scored again . Longridge battled hard but failed to break through a solid Pendle defence ,this left them vunlerable at the back and Pendle scored six more goals by the end of the game -Two from Judith Hind , Two from Janet Mitchell - Stanworth ,Cath Hutchinson and finally Natalie Mitchell , bringing the final score to 9 --0 .

Forest 3rds played Leyland and Chorley and were under pressure from the off. Despite great defensive work by player of the match, Judy Bentham, they struggled to keep Leyland at bay. Leyland put out a strong, well organised attacking team and Forest failed to respond meaning it was 3-0 to Leyland at half time. During the half time break, manager, Ian Bythell, made significant changes to the team formation and this proved to be what Forest needed. Amy Greenwood who moved to right forward ran at the Leyland defence and played a number of tempting balls into the D. Denise Tuck and Claire Birkett up front chased after everything that was fired in the D but sadly for Forest the Leyland defence prevented them from scoring. Olivia Bythell in the centre of midfield was outstanding and caused real problems for Leyland but despite some excellent play she was unable to convert her hard work into a goal. Throughout the second half Forest had the lions share of play but it was against the run of play, five minutes from time that Leyland were on the attack again. Despite good play by Gemma Holden, who was making her debut at left back, Forest failed to clear and Leyland stole a 4th goal. Throughout the match the Forest youth played great hockey against a more mature and stronger Leyland with under 15’s player, Alice Parkinson, making her first adult team appearance.

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