Bancroft’s School’s Under-18 Girls’ hockey team secured silver medals in the Investec Girls’ Schools T4 Championship Finals recently.

They travelled to Reading Hockey club as both the Essex and East Regional Champions, to face the champions and runners up from the other four English regions: North, Midlands, West and South.

In the initial group stage, Bancroft’s played four pool games, and the first three all followed a similar pattern as they came away with 2-0 wins against Maynard School, Hymers College and King Edward’s Lichfield.

All the goals were shared between Grace O’Malley Kumar and Eleanor Channer.

Bancroft’s led their pool by nine points at this stage but knew they could not afford to be complacent when they met St Mary’s Ascot in their final pool match.

St Mary’s took an early lead that was almost instantly cut out by O’Malley Kumar, but St Mary’s pulled away in the second half, adding two further goals in inflict a first defeat of the day on Bancroft’s.

With results in the other pools going their way, this put Bancroft’s through to the final where they faced Wells’ Cathedral School, the champions of the West.

Wells had won all of their pool games without conceding a goal so this was always going to be a tough test, but Bancroft’s held their own until the break where it was goalless.

It looked as though it would remain that way until full-time too, but with two minutes left Wells broke through and scored the only goal of the final, which saw Bancroft’s finish in a silver medal position.

Under-18s manager Jo Fryer-Green said: “The team were outstanding on the day, I cannot fault their effort or attitude. Wining silver at this national level was a very special moment that I was proud to be part of. The bar has been set for next year and already."