FIXTURE: Sussex Div 4
HOME TEAM: Southwick Men's 3s 0
AWAY TEAM: Lewes Men's 5s 7 (Wain 2, Cooke 2, Pendered 2, Fuller)

On Saturday Lewes Men's 5s travelled to Portslade and closed out their season in 2nd place with a dominant 7-0 win over Southwick 3s,

In the early exchanges the sides looked evenly matched with both goalkeepers keeping the score at nil all. With 18minutes gone, a shot from the Lewes skipper was saved and rebounded off the goalkeeper's pads to Ollie Pendered who confidently struck it into the bottom corner. The next 5 minutes saw Lewes play some excellent passing hockey finishing with Steve Fuller passing in the D to Charlie Cooke who drew out the goalkeeper and passed across goal for Malcolm Wain to sweep in at the back post for Lewes's second.

Gaining momentum Lewes now pressed high closing down each Southwick pass out of defence. The 3rd goal came from one such clearance intercepted by Alan Forster and slipped wide to Charlie Cooke who wrong-footed two defenders before tapping in on the reverse. Lewes closed out the first half with a penalty corner that Toby Rolph slipped left to Ollie Pendered who unselfishly passed back across the goal to Charlie Cooke who once again jinked around the Southwick defence and with the goalkeeper on the ground, lifted the ball into the net.

Southwick started the second half going forward and got as far as the Lewes D before Simon Murray made a great interception; a quick pass to Toby Rolph was then sent out to James Hall on the wing who drove all the way into the Southwick 23 before sweeping in a cross to Dax Debice who 'shared the love' with a little pass to Steve Fuller to smash in the visitor's 5th. 'Mr Cleansheet' - Stan Hughes had little to do and may have considered going home but was called to action on a couple of occasions to stop the Homeside scoring.

The next 20 minutes was all about the Southwick goalkeeper who saved everything Lewes could throw at him. The Homeside broke through the Lewes high press on a couple of occasions but were met by Mark Pearson's strong tackling or Dave Mansell's accurate stopping. Southwick's clearances were quickly intercepted and it wasn't until the game entered the last 10 minutes that Ollie Pendered claimed his second with a good strike following more short passing between Charlie Cooke and Steve Fuller.

With the game dead and buried there was one final goal of the season to be scored. Mark Pearson turned over another Southwick attack and passed out to Simon Murray on the wing who sent a long ball down the line for Dax Debice to drive into the D before sharing some more love with a cross to the back post where the skipper Malcolm Wain was waiting, stick down, to finish the season with another sweep into the bottom corner.

A convincing end to the season for the Men's 5s, another clean sheet for Stan Hughes and the 'mean' 5's defence, promotion secured in 2nd spot only 2pts behind South Saxons and the knowledge that we would have won the league but for the shenanigans resulting in draws at Eastbourne and Crowborough. A great pleasure to have captained this side for another successful season of Happy Hockey.

Lewes Hockey Club

Portslade Leisure Centre

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