U19 Lacrosse finals (Timperley)
ANDY Davis was the hero for Timperley with a golden-goal
winner which landed the Cheshire side the Norman Barber Under-19
Northern Knockout Cup for the first time in the club's history.
Davis was on target four times for the Stockport Road club
as they fought back from 4-2 and 6-5 behind to defeat Stockport,
the defending champions, who had previously not lost a game
in three years.
Thomas Gosnay, James Morris and Simon McGuigan all score
doubles for last year's champions, but Davis' goals and a
hat-trick from Chris Stokes proved crucial as Timperley came
out on top to the delight of Ryan Garnsworthy, the team's
Australian coach. "I'm absolutely thrilled for the boys,"
said Garnsworthy, whose side were beatne 3-2 by Stockport
in the Autumn Floodlit Conference A earlier in the season.
"We knew Stockport would give us a physical game, but
I said to the players before the match that we needed to keep
our cool - and that's just what we did. As the season has
gone on the team has definitely improved. I'm so pleased for
all the players because they worked so hard and did the basics
well. It was great to see how the boys rallied for this match,
particularly because Stockport beat us in a close game only
a few weeks ago."
Indeed, and Stockport were partly guilty for their own downfall
after McGuigan, the England Under-19 midfielder, received
an expulsion from the game early in the third quarter for
fighting. "Simon will live and learn from his mistake,
but apart from that incident he had a good game," admitted
Simon Rowlinson, the Stockport coach. "We knew that it
was always going to be a close match and that it was going
to be hot and fiery. But all credit to Timperley, they turned
up and deserved to win. We would have loved to have won, but
we've only lost one game in three years so we can't complain."
Stockport won a treble of titles last year and were on course
for a title-trio this term if Timperley had not stopped them
in their tracks.
The Beech Club have had to settle for a double this season
with titles in the Autumn Floodlit League and Ted Donnet Trophy,
the latter of which they have won for the last three years.
"We've got to learn from this defeat," added Rowlinson.
"Our shot selection wasn't good and some of our handling
wasn't much better, but I can't fault the effort from the
players - they gave 110 per cent. "
Mellor won the Plate final courtesy of a 9-8 victory against
a combined Wilmslow/Norbury team, who came back from 8-3 behind
to leave an exciting finale. Matt Marsh led the Mellor charge
with a hat-trick, while Freddie Evans, Oliver Hall, Phil Worth,
Chris Roach and Tom Marsh were also on the scoresheet. Stuart
Craig (3), Phil Layng (2), Matthew Cotterill (2) and Ian Davies
replied for Wilmslow/Norbury, but Mellor always managed to
keep their noses in front with quarter leads of 2-0, 4-0 and
8-3 respectively.
Men's Under-19 Norman Barber Northern Knockout Cup
final: (Timperley, Manchester: Timperley 7, Stockport
6 OT. Plate competition final: Wilmslow/Norbury 8, Mellor
9.
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