U15s Give It Their All to Reach the Quarter Finals

Sport Moreton Senior

Whilst the first Lacrosse team were preparing for their final showdown in the U19 Championship Final, the U15s were on their way from Shropshire to Aldershot for their tournament. U15 Captains Alexa and Matilda share their memories.

As the U19s edged closer to the final the U15s headed down to Aldershot for their age group tournament at the National Schools Lacrosse Championships. We travelled down as a team on Sunday and then went on to play on Monday. We had a very exciting journey down with us finding out our first team had made it to the finals so we had a Facetime call off Pippa so we could watch them play. They came out with an incredible win and became national champions. This definitely inspired our team to do well. After a long five hour journey down we made it to the hotel and had some supper. After this we all got out hair plaited as a team and packed our bags ready for the big day we had ahead.

The morning came and we had an early start. We headed to breakfast and then got straight on the bus to the pitches. One of our core memories of Nationals this year was this bus journey. We had music blasting as we put blue bows in our hair and painted our faces and legs.

We arrived at the pitches and we made our way to our tent ready for what the day would throw at us. We got the music blasting and despite the weather we kept the good vibes going. It came time for us to start warming up and this is where it all began. Our team consisted of U14s and U15s combined so we could make the best U15 team possible to compete with.

Following more paint and a long warm up it was time to play our first match against St Paul’s. We had a great win 6-0 which filled the whole team with confidence. Next up, Sherborne: after a rough start filled with some loopy passes, we came out with another impressive win 6-0. We knew our next competitor, Claremont, was going to be tough after being beaten by them in the first round of knockouts two years ago. It was a tight game but they just came out with the win 5-4. We were a little down heartened but had even more passion for the final match in our pool against Walthamstow. Again it was another tough match but with lots of support from the coaches, parents and our bus driver, we drew 2-2.

Then we waited anxiously to see if we would be through to the knockouts. We did it, second in our pool, and through to the last sixteen teams, but we were faced with the incredibly strong team, St Catherine’s. As the match started they were quick to score but then we fought back and at half time we were even with one all. We kept calm and managed to get two more amazing goals in the second half. There were two minutes left and they scored another but we kept it safe and when the central horn went, we couldn’t believe that we actually had beaten them. We were one of the top eight schools in the country.

It then came time for our quarter final match against St Swithun’s. The whole team was fired up and ready for a difficult match. We had a really strong start with Alexa scoring the first goal but they came but fighting even stronger scoring a couple more goals. After half time Nina and Matilda scored and we only needed one more goal to draw but in the last few minutes St Swithun’s pulled out all the stops and the final score was 6-3 to St Swithuns who later went on to win the entire U15’s tournament. Everyone tried their best and we kept fighting till the end. The whole team learnt a lot and should be very proud of how much was achieved. We are ready to improve over the next year and we are already all excited for Nationals 2025.