LOCH Lomond Hockey Club’s first team continued their successful start to the 2018-19 league campaign with a fine 2-1 win over Kelburne in Glasgow on Saturday.

Loch Lomond arrived at the National Hockey Centre with no substitutes but lots of enthusiasm.

And, buoyed by the 5-1 win away to Giffnock in their opening league fixture seven days previously, Loch Lomond had a good start, taking the game to the young, skilful Kelburne side straight away.

And they kept the ball in their opposition’s half for the first period of the game and throughout showed some brilliant connecting play.

Kelburne had some lovely attacking play, putting pressure on the three Loch Lomond defenders, but with the help of Vanessa Sabala, working hard as always to support the defence, Loch Lomond managed to stop attacking play fairly high and counter attack.

It was Loch Lomond who missed a couple of very close chances with some especially positive play from Hannah White through the centre linking nicely with Kim McCallion, Charlotte Chambers and Alexandra Smith.

Despite substantial pressure and some very near misses from Loch Lomond the score remained 0-0 at half time.

Both teams came out fighting in the second half and there was once again some great attacking play down the left from Zuby Kofi, and runs from Rebecca Lightfoot for the visitors.

Kelburne then had a spell of pressure and attacking play resulting in Heather Smith making some brilliant diving saves, but unfortunately for the visitors the hosts’ pressure finally paid off as Kelburne went 1-0 up.

With some near misses from penalty corners Loch Lomond remained behind until a combination of strong passes from the defence, in particular Sophia McDermott, adapting to a defensive role, Phillipa M.C. Filmer, working extremely hard to cut out play the from opposition down the right, and hit-outs by Sue Aikman, put the Kelburne defence under pressure and led to two very nicely worked goals, making the final score 2-1.

A brilliant all round team effort, once again showing a very positive performance for this time in the season and lot of promise for the matches ahead.

The player of the match accolade was awarded to Sue Aikman; runner up was Rebecca Lightfoot, and opposition player of the match was awarded to Hannah White.

Team: Heather Smith, Zuby Kofi, Sue Aikman, Phillipa M.C. Filmer, Sophia McDermott, Vanessa Sabala, Hannah White, Charlotte Chambers, Alexandra Smith, Rebecca Lightfoot, Kim McCallion.

Many thanks to John Friel for umpiring and to Rosie McColgan and Dave Finch for guidance, Gillian Finch and Andy Richardson for encouragement from the sidelines, and Anne McGregor for being a lucky charm just in time.