Women Pennant A 

Women Pennant A - Leanne Downer

After the longest ever pre-season starting in 2020 and continuing into 2021, we then had the challenge of rebuilding the Pennant A team due to a number of long term players not returning or moving into a new grade. Lauren Bleakley stepped up into the role of captain and she led the way at training and in our games. We ended up with a good mix of experienced players and juniors and the opportunity to give everyone experience at this level, in fact we had 26 players who played across our 10 games. 

We started off the season with a bang, played an attacking brand of hockey and won 4 out of the 1st 6 games, then the 1st lockdown stalled our momentum. When we came back after the break we struggled to get going again and we lost the next 4 games and ended up at 8th on the ladder. In 5 out of our 6 losses we went down by only 1 goal and were very competitive in those games. We ended up scoring 20 goals in our 10 games and only the top 2 teams in our grade scored more goals. Our goal scorers were spread across the team with 8 players scoring goals and Lauren and Lucia sharing the top goal scorer position with 4 goals each.

It was also great to have the coaching support and help of Cam McKenzie at our training sessions. He brought something different to the table and was able to help develop a number of skills with 1:1 and small group demonstrations. I also want to thank the coaches and players of WPL and WPLR who welcomed us into their warm-up, training sessions and practice games.  

Even though the season was short, the experience gained and the improvement made across the board for everyone in those 10 games will be very valuable for season 2022.