Sport in our schools: East gets the best of West with inter-district double

HOCKEY: Fettes College’s Phoebe Crosthwaite and George Watson’s College’s Catriona McLellan scored the goals in the final as the East under-16 girls team won the inter-district hockey event at Peffermill at the weekend.

Their goals set up East’s 2-0 win over the West on Sunday, and the tournament winners proved the best team over the two days, with a number of players in their squad impressing the national selectors.

They won all three of their matches on Saturday without conceding a goal. Captained by Mary Erskine’s Kerry-Anne Hastings, they defeated the Midlands 2-0, then the Highlands 5-0, with Lorna Cruikshank getting two goals, before beating South 2-0.

In the semi-finals on Sunday, they saw off the South-West 2-0, with Eilidh Thomson and Iona Armour the scorers. The West recorded an emphatic 5-0 win over the Midlands at the same stage, with Glasgow Academy’s Kirsty Fergie scoring a hat-trick.

In the third/fourth place play-off, the South-West defeated the Midlands 2-1, with Frances Lonergan and Molly Godfrey getting the goals.

The South finished fifth after 4-0 and 7-0 wins over the North and the Highlands. The Kelso High School duo of Claire Hill and Lucy Ramsay scored four goals apiece over these two encounters.

In the under-18 event, the East also beat the West in the final, this one finishing 2-1 with George Heriot’s Amber McNeil and Currie HS’s Clare Laverty scoring for the former. The High School of Glasgow’s Kirsty Johnstone scored the West’s goal.

On Saturday, the East had opened with a 1-1 draw against the Midlands before McNeil scored two in a 4-0 defeat of the North. They followed that up with a 3-0 win over the South, Ailsa Small, Sarah Jamieson and Kirsten Peters getting the goals.

The West had scored ten goals without reply in their three matches on day one, including 4-0 wins against the South-West and the South. Against the South-West, Jordanhill School’s Emily Moran led the way with two goals, while Hutchesons’ Grammar pupil Alison Eadie scored a brace in the South match.

On Sunday, round-robin matches continued before the match between East and West was cancelled, the teams opting to go straight to a final as they were the top two.

That match was an end-to-end affair following the third/fourth place play-off, in which the Midlands defeated the South 3-0, Joanne Brown starring with two goals.