DEVIZES U16 Girls claimed victory in the side’s first ever competitive England Hockey Championship fixture last weekend.

Devizes beat Wotton Under Edge 3-0 thanks to goals from Ruby Morton, Issy Holloway and Zoe Stansfield-Cox on home turf.

The home team started strongly and dominated the opening exchanges but could not find the finish to some good build-up play.

With the game evenly balanced, Devizes won a series of penalty corners and, on the third, slipped the ball to the left to Alex Lascelles.

Her initial shot was saved by the Wotton goalkeeper, only for Morton to pounce on the rebound and put Devizes 1 - 0 up.

Wotton had chances to equalise, but the Devizes defence did enough to keep them out – with young goalkeeper Issy Morton making some excellent saves.

The Devizes cause was not helped as they received a couple of green cards for repeated offences and they were lucky to finish the half ahead.

The second half saw a change in formation for Devizes, and the tactic saw an increase in both intensity and quality.

Once again, the pressure resulted in a series of penalty corners and again the team were rewarded after a well-worked routine saw Issy Holloway fire the ball past the ‘keeper to make it 2-0 from the left edge of the D.

As the game neared completion, Devizes scored their third - this time from open play.

After good build-up play down the right, the ball was fed in to Mollie Ball at the top of the D.

Her snapshot was deflected high in the air, and Stansfield-Cox was in the perfect position at the far post to finish with a spectacular overhead smash.

Co-captain Mollie Ball said: “It was a good performance and great to play competitive hockey again.

“I thought all the girls did really well and it was a whole squad effort - really pleased with the clean sheet as much as the win.”