THE Staffordshire Scorpions recorded their highest win of the season as they ran out comfortable winners against Leicester University.
The game however was marred by a serious injury to Staffordshire’s forward Elle Morrison. The forward got taken off to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone after falling awkwardly following s strong tackle from the Leicester defence.
The incident meant the Scorpions had to play the last quarter with 11 players, but by this time the Scorpions had a 16-0 advantage and the result was beyond doubt.
Dimitri Chambers opened the scoring after he converted a rebound, following a saved shot from Nick Thursby.
Staffs took no time in scoring their second as Thursby finished off a fine team move, which started straight from the restart. James Perkins won the ball and passed it on to Carly Edwards whose precise through ball found Thursby who made no mistake with the finish.
Edwards then grabbed her first of the game after Chambers picked her out on the edge of the fan, giving the forward enough time to run through the fan to score past the helpless keeper.
Leicester could not cope with the pace of the Scorpions attack and soon found themselves four down. Perkins latched onto Edwards’ pass to give himself a clean run on goal and he duly provided the finish.
The game already looked over as a contest in the tenth minute as Kelly Stone added another to make it five without reply at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter followed the same pattern as the first with Edwards and Chambers grabbing another two goals each to secure their hat-tricks after just 25 minutes of the game.
There was still time for Staffs to grab two more goals before half time with Edwards getting another one and Thursby scoring his second after a strong run from Jack Tew set him free.
The Scorpions were relentless going forward and were ahead within 15 seconds of the restart. Perkins again picked the ball up from draw and passed it on to Thursby who found Edwards in the fan and she finished with ease.
Edwards then completed her scoring with her sixth of the game following good work from Izzy Wilding and Thursby who again set up the captain to score.
Perkins then added his second and Chambers got his fourth as they benefited from assists by Chambers and Wilding respectively.
Almost immediately after Tew got his first ever away goal as he connected onto Chambers’ pass to produce a powerful finish past the Leicester goalkeeper who by now had picked the ball out of her net 16 times.
There was then a 20 minute delay for the ambulance to arrive following the injury to Morrison as players from both teams immediately stopped play to care to the injury.
When the match restarted in the last quarter the Scorpions were a girl down but this made little difference as Tew added his second following a good pass from Edwards.
Leicester did manage to grab a consolation goal as their captain scored on her second attempt after Stephen Jinks had made a good save from her initial effort.
Staffs did not let their heads drop and added three more goals through Jay Armstrong, Chambers and Stone before Leicester scored a second with the last throw of the game.
The result means Staffordshire are now three games unbeaten, with a positive goal difference of 32 over those games.
Staffordshire: Stephen Jinks, Dimitri Chambers, David Grice, Christopher Pike, Karina Gale, Sarah Lang, James Perkins, Jay Armstrong, Nick Thursby, Jack Tew, Carly Edwards ©, Izzy Wilding, Kelly Stone, Elle Morrison.
Man of the match: Dimitri Chambers
Women of the match: Carly Edwards
For videos of the games goals click here