Over the course of three days, Loreto had eight teams competing across four tournaments, held as part of the Hockey Inter School Competition. This was more than any other school and was due to the high standard of hockey shown by the children in their P.E lessons.
All teams showed great skills, team work and progression throughout the tournament and all children played with a smile on their face. In the initial group stages, three of our teams managed to win all their matches to finish first in their group, to make it through to the finals that were held on the Wednesday. These teams were the Junior Girls Black team, Junior Boys Red team and Senior Girls Black team.
A special note must also go to the Junior Girls Red team, who mainly consisted of Year 4 girls, with the experience of a couple of Year 5’s, who made it through to the 3rd/4th play off match. Unfortunately they were unable to over come the strength and experience of their opponents, but still finished in a credible 4th place overall.
On the finals day, the Junior Black team took to the field for the first final and from the very beginning, showed their skill and determination. After a number of chances that just fell wide of the goal, the team managed to score their first and from then on, the girls went from strength to strength, with great passes, finishes and well timed tackles, the girls went on to win the game with a comfortable 4-0 score line. This was a great feat, especially as it meant the team didn’t let in a single goal in the whole competition and scored more than any other team.
Up next was the Senior Girls Black team, who faced an experienced and skilful Bishop Fitzgerald team, which contained players who had won the competition the previous year. It was a nervy start to the game from both teams and chances came at both ends, but Bishop were the first to capitalise with a great individual goal. However, our girls heads didn’t drop and with great teamwork and determination, they quickly got a goal back, with a great finish from Gimena Bocanegra Hallin. From then on, the majority of the chances came from our girls and we had shots that hit the post, disallowed and just went wide. Eventually, we took the lead and from then on we looked very comfortable, with great defending at the back and great passing up front, we eventually finished as 3-1 winners. A great result from a determined bunch of girls, who fought for every 50-50 ball and supported each other for every phase of play, to turn the game around and finish with the schools second trophy of the day.
Last up for the school, were the Junior Boys Red team, who again, were up against a very strong and skilful team. The game started with some good play by both teams. However, we were unable to stop one individual player from Bishop (who was eventually named Outstanding Performer of the Tournament) and he set up three very good goals for the opposition. However, like the Senior girls, our boys heads never went down and they picked themselves up, fighting for every ball and still trying to play the attacking and skilful hockey they had shown in the group stages. This eventually led to a goal for us and a chance to make it 3-2, but the ball hit the post and just went wide. On one such counter attack, Bishop again scored, but again our boys fought back to also score another great goal. Although the final score finished 6-2 to Bishop, our boys kept going at 100% effort until the final whistle. This was also noted by Nathan Stagno (Gibraltar’s International Umpire) who commented on how impressed he was with how our boys kept going forward to score until the very end and never gave up.
Overall, the finals saw great performances, strength of character, skill and most importantly team work from all three teams that made it through to the final. The final results were Junior Girls Champions, Senior Girls Champions and Junior Boys Runners-Up, which meant this was the schools most successful year ever in the Hockey Inter School Competition.
At the end of the tournament, a number of individual awards were given out to each of the teams, and below are the winners from our school:
Junior Girls Loreto Red:
Best Player – Charlotte Scott
Most Improved – Elena Garcia Sanchez
Junior Girls Loreto Black:
Best Player – Alexa Tilbury Chang
Most Improved – Hannah Cabezutto
Junior Boys Red:
Best Player – Sebastian Diaz Mateos
Most Improved – Jamie Bray Prettejohns
Junior Boys Black:
Best Player – Antonio Marfil
Most Improved – Sam Sheriff
Senior Girls Red:
Best Player – Julia Dona Pastoriza
Most Improved – Anika Jain
Senior Girls Black:
Most Improved – Cristina Diaz Mateos
Senior Boys Red:
Best Player – Luca Howard
Most Improved – Joseph Mann
Senior Boys Black:
Best Player – Hugo Alvarez Saavedra
Most Improved – Jessy Stobbe
Also, there were some overall awards presented to the best players/goal scorers in both the Junior and Senior competitions, with our pupils winning the following:
Lucia Olivera – Top Goal Scorer of the Junior Girls Tournament
Gimena Bocanegra Hallin – Outstanding Performance (Best Player) of the Senior Girls Tournament
Well done to all involved and thank you to all that came to support the team over the three days. The noise and cheering was immense!
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