Hockey boys see double in national champs (From Basingstoke Gazette)

U18s boys retain English title, but U16 girls beaten in semis

4:54pm Tuesday 24th January 2012 in Romsey By Alan Feldberg

WYCOMBE Hockey Club must have been seeing double by late Sunday night.

Just hours earlier their U18s boys had taken on the best in England and beaten them all to become champions of England for the second year in a row.

For a club of their size, winning such a prestigious title once is astonishing – to retain it 12 months later marks out this U18s boys team as something quite extraordinary.

Manager Tim Maunder said: “I’m so proud of them. The first time you do something it’s fabulous. The second time you hope and know you can do it, but to actually achieve it is fabulous.

“For that group of boys, it’s very very special.”

And they did it the hard way too, coming from behind in three of their five matches before winning the final on penalty flicks against Havant.

Ironically, Havant and Wycombe had met in their regional final just before Christmas, with Wycombe again taking the title on penalties.

Wycombe started their defence superbly with a 6-1 win over Harleston followed by a magical 4-3 victory over Beeston, who had been leading 3-2 with just minutes to go.

But Liam Ansell scored twice late on to win it for Wycombe and at the same time dump one of their main threats out of the competition.

And the match proved to be the making of Wycombe.

They came from behind against Taunton to confirm their semi-final spot and then trailed Cannock 1-0 in the last four before Josh Mardell struck twice in the second half to set up the Havant showpiece.

This time the tables were turned as they lost a 2-0 lead late on, but they made amends from the spot.

However, the U16s girls weren’t so fortunate. They were also defending champions but lost to Harleston in a penalty flick shoot-out in the semi-finals.

To make it harder for the Wycombe girls to take, Harleston went on to win the final 5-1.