This week, Wilmslow Hockey Club men's first team, who are champions of the league, welcomed an in form Windermere side who were needing a win to keep up their late push for 3rd place in the league.
Wilmslow were preparing for a hard game and were expecting Windermere to attack from the first whistle, instead the home side produced arguably the best first half of hockey in the teams history dominating the strong Windermere team in every position and creating chances at will.
It wasn't long before Wilmslow opened the scoring with Edmonds and Lumpy combining down the right hand side to feed Andy Hunt who then slipped the ball under the keeper.
The second came from a huge aerial, from the captain Martin Wright, which found Man of the Match Chris Stott in the top right hand corner. Stott then drove towards the D brushing off the Windermere defenders and slipping the ball to Steve Edmonds who the hit a perfect reverse into the corner of the goal. The third soon followed with Andy Hunt dribbling into the D before selflessly passing the Edmonds for a back post tap in.
Wilmslow were off to a flying start and they were not done yet, soon after his previous goal Edmonds had the ball on his stick in the D again and managed to pass through his legs to Pete Hallinan who then put the ball in the back of the net from close range. A few minutes later team veteran Matt Westbrook made a perfect tackle spun away from his opponent, and expertly threaded a long pass through to Hallinan who found himself one on one with the keeper, inevitably scoring the 5th goal of the day.
Almost immediately Wilmslow's pressure on the Windermere defence paid off again with Hunt intercepting a pass from the opponents centre back, Hunt then passed the ball to Hallinan who breezed past a defender and struck the ball past the keeper into the far corner completing his first hat trick for Wilmslow within a 10 minute period at the end of a perfect first half performance by the whole team.
Wilmslow's half time team talk was all about not taking their feet off the gas, but despite this Windermere managed to get into the game at the start of the second half forcing Adam Ford into a handful of great saves. As ever the defensive unit of Wright, Stocker, Berkon, Toal, Stott and James were solid and did not give their opponents any space or time on the ball. Windermere's only goal of the day came from the penalty spot after Chris Berkon made another one of his trademark horrendous tackles.
Normal service soon resumed with Andy Hunt intercepting another wayward pass from the opposition defence this time beating two defenders himself and sliding the ball under the on rushing keeper. The final goal was scored by Captain Wright with a signature drag flick from a penalty corner putting the ball low to the goal keepers right side.
Next week Wilmslow face Oxton in their last home game of the season, where they are hoping for a similar performance.
Elsewhere the men's second team were unlucky to lose 4-2 to Neston South Wirral, however the men's 3rd team displayed a great team effort to beat Winnington Park 4-3, the men's 4th team were unfortunate to lose 5-1 to Bowdon.
The ladies first team dominated against Crewe to beat them 2-0 with goals from Charlotte Kelman and Ruth Walters, the ladies 2nd team game was called off whilst the ladies 3rd team displayed an outstanding performance to beat Triton 4-2, with 2 goals each from Jenni Numri and Jen Middleton-Egan, the ladies 4th team finished off a great day with a win against Crewe 3-1. The under 16's were held to a 1 all draw against Oxton in a tournament this weekend.
Match report by Amy Bracegirdle.
