WITNEY Ladies captain Katie Gatt says the experience of playing in the second tier of English hockey will be good for the club despite suffering relegation.
In their first season at that level, the Lambs were relegated with a game to spare and ended the campaign with a 5-1 defeat at home to Sevenoaks.
However, the season provided plenty of memorable moments, including beating a Canterbury side featuring 2016 Olympic gold medallist Susannah Townsend, back in October.
Gatt said: “That’s been the best thing, playing against players like that.
“We’d never have dreamt of having the opportunity of playing against people like that.
“It’s been another level, it’s a different world, a big step up but we’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”
READ AGAIN: Draw for Witney Ladies seals relegation with game to spare
Witney are now almost certain to be back in Conference West, which they won last season to earn their fourth promotion in just six seasons.
“There was always a desire to play higher league hockey,” said Gatt.
“It’s just improved everyone’s hockey so much. I’m excited about next year because we’ve really gelled as a team.
“We’ve been to so many different places that we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to.
“It’s been an amazing experience. It’s 11 games that we’ve lost and we’ve nearly got something from half the games. It’s a great achievement.
“This year we’ve just been really unlucky – drag flicks have been miraculously saved, we’ve just had no luck whatsoever, it’s just not meant to be in this league this year.
“But give us another year in the Conference and we’ll see if we can get back up here.”
Gatt said of the second tier: “The time that you have on the ball, there’s just no time.
“Pre-scanning is so important. It’s a massive step up. The speed of the game, the movement, the fitness, everything is huge. And I feel like we have managed to compete massively.
“We probably started getting into it just before Christmas and then you have the big winter break.
“The speed and the skillset among the players is another level.”
The Lambs skipper now says her teammates will be ‘striving’ for promotion next season.
She said: “We won’t go into it thinking ‘we must go back up’ because that’s not our mentality, it never has been our ethos.
“But we will certainly continue to improve, we’ll recruit a couple more players and then go again, absolutely.
“We’ve got the foundations to do it, we know what it’s about now.”
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