Peaking at the perfect time to be crowned U18 boys National Indoor Champions
The England Hockey Indoor National championships took place this weekend in Wolverhampton with the champions from the 8 England Areas competing to become national champions. On Saturday Old Loughts u16 boys, as East u16 champions, finished second in their pool to qualify for the semi finals but lost 4-2 to eventual winners Repton.

On Sunday it was the turn of Old Loughts u18 boys.
The boys initially got off to a solid start scoring two early goals in their first match against Brooklands, but they let a couple of umpiring decisions disrupt their concentration and ended up loosing the match 3-5. Lesson learnt though! The boys re-focused and went on to win their final two pool matches convincingly; 5-1 against East Grinstead and 7-2 against Winchester. Second place in their pool and a guaranteed semi-final against Repton who had won the other pool.

It was a tough draw as Repton are a class act indoor, but the boys took their game to the next level, set up a compact defence that Repton struggled to breakdown, and were clinical in attack. The match finished 4-1 to Lought’s which secured them a place in the final against old rivals Surbiton who had beaten them 4-3 only a couple of weeks earlier at the Copperbox tournament. However, with steely determination the boys were adamant this would not happen again and set about their task with real control and purpose. Their well organised structured defence kept Surbiton at bay and their attacking flare lead by Nathan Gladman, who won 2 penalty corners, that were consequently dispatched, enabled them to build a 2-0 lead. Thanks to some fantastic goal keeping by Finn Sayers the boys held this lead in to the last minute, when Surbiton managed to convert a penalty corner of the their own. The boys saw out the rest of the game to be crowned U18 boys National Indoor Champions.

A wonderful day’s hockey and fantastic team performance lead brilliantly by Charlie Britt as captain. The defence was marshalled superbly by Stuart Cuff and the attack lead by two stand out performances from Harvey Edwards scoring 11 goals and Freddy Cooke scoring 8 and sharing the spoils with one each in the final. A special mention for Toby Gayler for scoring the goal of the tournament in the semi-final.

This group of boys have been so close on many occasions in the past and they drew on the resolve this has created to produce a complete tournament performance. Despite starting slowly they showed great resilience, trusted their ability, stuck to the plan and kept belief in each other. They got better and better as the tournament went on and built up to two outstanding performances in the semi-final and final. Ultimately it was the whole team performance and spirit that enabled the victory which was well deserved by them all. Congratulations to all involved, a fantastic performance. U18 boys National Indoor Champions.