Hockey: Conway strikes twice late on to earn Lancaster hard-fought win

Lancaster were in fantastic form going into their game with Formby 1s and despite the visitors making a bright start, the home side claimed a hard-fought 2-0 victory.
The Lancaster Development Team.The Lancaster Development Team.
The Lancaster Development Team.

Formby created some great chances early on but Leighan Bleasdale made two great saves to keep her clean sheet intact.

Lancaster just could not get going due to Formby’s tenacity in midfield and they gave away possession too often, which invited pressure on their defence and penalty corners were conceded.

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However, player of the match Holly Farquharson closed them down and cleared the ball away to safety while Heather Andrew and Cath Foy stayed strong at the back to keep Formby at bay.

Lancaster upped their workrate in the second half and came close to scoring when Ali Standeven found a way through to the D but she fluffed her shot and both Farquharson and Hayley Johns saw their efforts blocked.

The tide was turning though and Lancaster broke the deadlock with 15 minutes to go – Jayde Christeansen worked the ball into the D and won a penalty corner which Nicola Conway hammered home.

Two minutes later their lead was doubled when, from another corner, Conway again found the back of the net after a neat 1-2 with Standeven.

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Farquharson was flying down the left flank, creating all sorts of problems for Formby’s right back, and was unlucky not to get on the score sheet herself.

Meanwhile, Lancaster 2s suffered a 5-0 defeat away at Garstang 2s, and in Division Two of the Central Lancashire League Lancaster 1s lost 1-0 at home to Fylde 4s.

*The Lancaster Development Team returned to action at the weekend away at Lancaster Nomads 2s, but they suffered a 3-0 defeat.

The Lancaster team started brightly with good possession play in the middle of the pitch between Frances Archer, Molly Ayrton and Claudia Fowler. Meanwhile, Caitlin Currie, Sofie Deighton and Olivia Wyeth-Physick made some excellent runs up the pitch to outwit the Nomads defence.

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Nomads, however, found their rhythm and Leighan Bleasdale had to make a number of reflex saves to keep the scores level.

Five minutes before half time though, as legs started to tire, Nomads caught Lancaster off guard and took the lead going into the break.

Lancaster put Nomads under pressure in the second half but they were unable to convert any of their chances, as the clinical hosts went on to score two more times.

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