Penzance 2, SOHC 1 Sidmouth and Ottery Men’s 1st XI returned empty handed from the long trip to Penzance after being edged out by the odd goal in three.

The team had travelled with plenty of optimism, looking to return to winning ways, but it was not to be.

Sidmouth and Ottery dominated the opening exchanges, playing much better hockey than their Cornish rivals creating several chances and near misses, with Matt Ogborne coming closest with a reverse stick flick that went narrowly wide.

Mikey Bell broke the deadlock after a good passing play left him with a simple tap in. Sidmouth and Ottery dominated the rest of the first half with the Cornishmen only winning a couple of short corners which came to nothing.

The second half was much the same with Sidmouth and Ottery passing the ball around and creating lots of chances. There were a number of goal mouth scrambles with Sidmouth and Ottery failing to get the final decisive touch. This dominance paid off again when the Sidmouth and Ottery were awarded a penalty flick when the Penzance defender fouled Mikey Bell on a clear goal scoring opportunity. Unfortunately the subsequent flick was saved by the Penzance goalie!

Then, to compound the situation, Penzance scored a breakaway goal to level the score.

Next up arrived the game-changing moment when Sidmouth and Ottery’s goalkeeper was sin binned for 10 minutes for talking back to the umpire!

The ten players battled on and tried to conserve the point that they would have been happy with to take back to Devon. However, late on Penzance won a short corner and, despite the best efforts of the defence, without a goalie there was only one result, a winning goal to the hosts.

On Saturday SOHC once again travel to Cornwall when they face Redruth.