Sedgefield hosted an Under 17 Tournament at Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre in front of a full balcony of spectators who were treated to some excellent polo. Sedgefield entered 2 teams, the Greens and Orange.
The City of Manchester the National Champions in this age group with a full team of nearly all GB squad players were the favourites. Sedgefield Greens started with a comfortable 12-2 win over Rotherham in their first group game.
They were then against Manchester, and Sedgefield surprised them with some great play, tight defence and brilliant goalkeeping from Josh Lowther, to hold Manchester to a 3-3 draw. Sedgefield defeated St Bedes school from Yorkshire 12-1 to top their group on goal difference.
Sedgefield Orange in their group lost to Lancaster and beat Darlington to be runners up in their group and this meant a semi final against the Sedgefield green team. In a hard fought game the greens triumphed 4-1 to reach the final. Sedgefield were up against Manchester in the final again as they had won the other semi final. Sedgefield made some silly mistakes to find themselves 2 nil down but fought back hard to go 3-2, but Manchester showed their class with some clinical finishing to lead 5-3 with 2 minutes remaining.
Sedgefield fought back to level at 5-5 with seconds left on the clock. There now had to be 2 periods of extra time which looked hard for Sedgefield as they only had really young players on the bench. Sedgefield showed great fortitude to dominate extra time and lead 7-5. Manchester pulled a goal back with seconds left but Sedgefield had triumphed 7-6.
Josh Lowther (14) was player of the tournament for Sedgefield with a great performance in goal. Joe Barker was Sedgefield’s leading scorer and James Pratt gave a mature performance in defence.
The other members of the Sedgefield team were John Pratt, Jake Plant, Ben Turnbull, Adam Courtley, Kris Egginton, Michael Cousins, Connor Keeble and Richard Murray.
