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GC Damen 2: Indoor Season 2016/2017 started

The NLB team faced their first indoor matches on Sunday. With a handful of players playing indoor competitive hockey and relatively few trainings since the switch from outdoor completed, the experience was always going to be a steep learning curve, especially against the two strongest opponents in the league.


The first game was against a confident Servette team, who were able to make faster and sharper passes and move the ball around the pitch with ease. The pace of the game took GC by surprise and it took the team a while to adjust to it.

The Servette forwards made Tilia make some solid saves from the very start of the game. However, Servette were able to pounce on the rebounds from the pads of Tilia and make several easy goals from close range. It was 0:5 before GC were able to carve out a real opportunity for themselves and Virginia was not going to miss an opportunity like this. She took the ball around 2 Servette players and fired the ball into the bottom right of the goal, giving the goalkeeper no chance of saving it.

In the second half, GC played with more confidence and were able to keep possession and prevent Servette from having the space and time they had in the first half. Anna made some Tanja-esque challenges in the midfield and Laura was

consistently solid in defence. But Servette once again made it look easy and made sure that Tilia was kept as busy as possible. Two short corners resulted in two more goals for Servette but the defence were unlucky not to stop the ball on the line but the balls somehow managed to trickle in.

For GC’s second short corner of the game, Viola fed the ball out to Virginia, who nicely lifted the ball into the left side of the goalie and straight into the net. The match ended 2:10.


The second match against Lucerne showed a much improved performance from the team. The team talk before the game had focus on the importance of patience and movement. The game was very much like the first, with the opposition showing

their obvious experience and taking control of the game. Defensively, GC were much tighter than in the first game but Lucerne were able to pile the pressure onto the defence and break through. Tilia again was a superstar in goal. At one point she pulled off a triple save before the attacker shot and missed to give GC a free hit. At the end of the first half the score was 0:4.

In the second half, some members of the GC team were visibly tired but, refusing to give up they carried on in a determined fashion. From an attacking point of view the chances were few and far between. The task of the attackers was made more difficult by the strong defensive players for Lucerne. The Lucerne goalkeeper had to react quickly to make a couple of important saves late on in the second half. The match ended 0:7.

The NLB team now have some time to train and improve until the next round of matches but the first match was a good experiences for the newly put-together team and there were signs off potential within the side.

GC Players:
Tilia Schneider (GK), Laura Poulastrou, Lyndsay Lomax, Virginia Friedrich, Anna Denkeler (C), Hanna Wettstein, Viola Trippe, Katharina Zachariassen, Isabelle Nijman, Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Coach: Lukas Roloff