Chard 2
Okehampton 3
OKEHAMPTON men's hockey team travelled to Chard for their third league game of the season hoping to continue their winning start to the campaign.
The game started evenly with both teams keeping the ball when in possession and very little was created in the opening exchanges. Okehampton went close first through Simon Bourne and then with Chris Luxton before Nick Luxton's reverse strike found the bottom corner.
The home side rallied after the goal and some poor umpiring aloud them to equalize. The visitors put together some lovely moves with James Rogers, Andrew Paterson and Greg Williams combining to create a few good chances.
It was the hosts who took the lead though, when a misjudgment by keeper Andy Harvey saw them take the advantage at half time, the first time Okehampton have trailed at half time in over a year.
The second half saw Okehampton's fitness start to tell and they started controlling the game in the midfield. Eventually they found their equalizer, Simon Bourne finding Mark Parsons whose shoot squirmed under the goalkeeper and into the goal. Chard offered little going forward and Okehampton continued to push and were unlucky not to extend their scoring when Wiliams found Paterson, whose effort came back off the post.
It was not long before they were creating more chances though, Parsons was unable to convert an easy chance and Brett Lawson had a short corner well saved.
The away side finally got their noses in front after a good move — Chris Luxton's shot was parried only to Lawson and he smashed the ball home to give them the lead. In the final few minutes Williams was shown a yellow card for a perfectly good tackle. With a short corner awarded with a minute to go the vistitors managed to defend it well with Sam Spry, John Jarvis and Rogers solid in defence and man of the match Nick Luxton outstanding.
This was a superb result for Okehampton with the odds stacked against them. This week Okehampton host ISCA C at 1pm.