Basingstoke girls claim last-gasp victory (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Basingstoke girls claim last-gasp victory

12:00pm Wednesday 6th March 2013 in Sport

BASINGSTOKE under-18 girls left it late to beat big rivals Ellingham and Ringwood, scoring a try with the final move of the game to claim a 15-12 win.

Visiting Ellingham opened the scoring and, despite a long delay while one of their players was treated for an injury, they remained 5-0 ahead at half-time.

’Stoke came into the game more after the break, with their forwards dominating the scrum, and they were soon level. Centre Abi Beven broke the line before offloading for No 8 Hannah West to shrug off a number of tackles to score.

This domination continued but Ellingham scored a converted try against the run of play to take a 12-5 lead. West scored for a second time, crashing over after an overlap was created, but the conversion was missed and the hosts trailed by two points.

It looked like the missed kick would be critical but Basingstoke kept up the pressure and eventually got their reward, West crashing over to complete her hat-trick and win the game with time running out.

The under-15 girls did not fare so well against the same opposition, losing 52-12 despite showing some great fighting spirit.

The under-16s boys claimed a 43-32 win away at Chinnor in a friendly match split into three periods of 30 minutes. Basingstoke were losing 22-7 after the first half-hour but hit back well, centre Josh Bradley claiming a hat-trick and prop Glen Serafica also scoring.

The under-14s lost at the semi-final stage of the Hampshire Cup, going down 12-0 away at Gosport and Fareham, with all of the points being scored in the first-half.

The under-13s travelled to Alton for a friendly consisting of three 20-minute periods – and ran out 34-32 winners. Scott Brown got a hat-trick, while there were further scores for Drew Patterson, Corrie Simpson and Adam Richards, with Ben Connor kicking two conversions.

In the senior ranks, the second string continued their fine season with a 57-11 win at home to Gosport and Fareham II, but the thirds lost 20-5 to Petersfield, Jason Jacobs getting their only score.

The fourths had a good day, beating Gosport and Fareham III 32-0 thanks to tries from Martyn Bagshaw, Trevor Swain, Mark Beynon and Chris Pritchard, with Dave Wright kicking two penalties and three conversions.