Scotland U18 Girls were defeated 2-1 by Ireland in the U18 EuroHockey Championships in Krefeld.
It was a slow start by Scotland and Ireland looked keen to capitalise. The damage was done in one minute of the second quarter when Ireland struck back-to-back goals to go 2-0 ahead. Both strikes were penalty corners Mikayla Power smashing home the opener, before Amelia Jerman followed up with the second.
Early in the third quarter, Scotland struck back. Lexie MacMillan found the net to pull the score back to 2-1 after some excellent build up.
The young Scots created half a dozen opportunities through penalty corners but the ball just wouldn’t find its way into the net.
It was all guns blazing early in the fourth quarter as Scotland took their goalkeeper to try and find the illusive equaliser, but Ireland held strong and took the win.
Head Coach Kelly Fillingham said, “We wanted to show our attacking identity and threaten today, but we only managed to do that for half a game, which is a difficult lesson for us to learn at this level. You get punished if you make a slow start at this standard of hockey. We really went for it at the end but just couldn’t get over the line.
“We’ll regroup tonight, and we’ll go again tomorrow. France will be a tough game but we have to win by a few goals to keep our ambition of a top six finish alive. It’s still to play for, it’s still in our hands, but we’ve got to win, and win big.”