Scotland’s U21’s secured a last four spot at the EuroHockey Junior Nations Trophy in Prague by beating Ukraine 4-1 today, with Bonagrass Grove’s Nikki Kidd netting all four goals for Scotland.

Scotland took control of the game from the whistle, with Kidd bagging three goals in the first quarter of the game before their Eastern European opponents could respond. 

Scottish manager Sheila Gray said: “We’re in the top four so it’s good. We came to win the first two games and we’ve done that.”
 
Having scraped by with a 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic on Sunday, Gray was happy with this more controlled performance: “We weren’t particularly pleased with yesterday’s performance but we played much better today.

“The girls were quite nervous, they knew how important the first game was and we’d had such a long build up, they were so eager to play, almost too eager.  They played more with their hearts yesterday and not their heads; today they played with their heads and hearts.”

The Scots now face Ukraine’s neighbours Russia in the semi-final.  The Scotland team has a rest day today (Tues) before playing Russia at 15:00 on Wednesday. 

Watch video highlights from the Ukraine game at http://pozemni-hokej.tvcom.cz/videa/ and view pictures at http://fieldhockey.cz/index.php?goto=galerie&id=5