BHC Men's 3s - 5, Sonnings 3s - 4
After a great game last week, the team’s confidence was up. We had a short warm-up (because half the team turned up five minutes before pushback) before discussing the lineup and going onto the pitch.
After a rough first ten minutes playing with a bare 11 players, we managed to pull a goal out of the bag and go 1-0 up as Armstrong senior fed Armstrong junior for a far post tap-in. This was soon evened out during a short corner when the Sonning drag-flicker slotted one bottom left. 1-1.
Moments later Felix Smith picked up a risky pass from the Sonning sweeper and made it a 3 on 1 with their keeper. However, a dodgy pass made Stuart Armstrong fall on his bum, but he still managed to deflect it into the goal putting us 2-1 up.
Not long before halftime Sonning won another short corner which their flicker managed to scrape aside netting goal which made it 2-2.
During halftime Stuart Armstrong, as always, had a big rant at the team, making sure to mention our "areas of improvement". He balanced this out by saying a few positives on how we played and hyped us up ready for a great second half.
We started out strong in the second half with a great pass from Felix to Dave Clark, which set him up for a perfect slap into the backboard to make it 3-2 Banbury.
Unfortunately, their drag flicker was at it again launching the ball from a short corner into a perfect shot into the backboard 3-3.
During a tense short corner, Dave Clark picked the ball and hit it into the bottom corner. 4-3 Banbury.
Banbury finally managed to stop a Sonning short corner drag-flick... unfortunately striking Andrew Minson on the chest giving away a penalty stroke. Their striker made no mistake as he slipped it in between Alistair and his stick. 4-4
During a counter-attack Dave Clark played a one-two with Stuart Armstrong, setting him up with a perfect hit into the bottom left corner of the goal. 5-4 Banbury.
A few strong counterattacks were stopped in their paces by Jon Townsend, Andrew Minson, Jack Percival, and Dipak Tandel which left Banbury on top for the rest of the game.
After a tense match, the final score was 5-4 to Banbury, leaving us comfortably in the top half of the table.
Match report by Ruben Buckner-Rowley