Lytham St Annes Hockey Club: Men make up for first league defeat

Looking to make up for defeat in the previous fixture, Lytham started well on Sunday and created chances early on.

The Leyland keeper was forced to make some good saves before Lytham opened the scoring with a drag flick from Adam Dixon.

Some impressive stops had prevented Lytham from doubling their lead before Will Butcher scored at the back post to make it 2-0 at half-time.

After a positive talk at the break, Lytham started the second half with the same intensity.

Leyland and Chorley’s players became increasingly frustrated, putting in some strong challenges on the Lytham players.

Instead, that only spurred on Lytham who continued to create some scoring opportunities.

A change in short corner routine produced the third goal with a well-worked routine finished off by Tom Evans.

The game then became scrappy with both teams giving away the ball cheaply and an increasing physicality in the challenges.

Lytham held strong however, seeing out the game and taking victory.

The same day saw Lytham’s U12s play matches against Preston 2 and Pendle.

Their first game was against Preston, which saw Lytham’s good passing and attacking creating many excellent opportunities.

Having seen a goal disallowed, Lytham’s good attacking play culminated in Polly Hargreaves’ well-deserved strike.

The girls also defended very well throughout, while Ella Butler-Reid made some excellent saves to secure a 1-0 victory.

Lytham’s second game against Pendle saw them beaten 4-1 despite playing some good hockey and showing excellent teamwork.

Good goalkeeping and well-timed tackles kept Lytham in the game before they unluckily conceded a deflected goal.

A second goal followed but the Lytham players refused to give up and were unfortunate not to get through Pendle’s defence.

They conceded another in going 3-0 down, only for their resilience to pay off.

A lovely passage of play on the right ended with them winning a short corner.

Hargreaves passed out to Ava Butler-Reid, who fired the ball beyond the keeper.

However, Pendle responded by squeezing in another goal just before the final whistle to complete the scoring.