On a lovely fresh morning Okehampton travelled to Shepton Mallet for a midtable encounter in the England Hockey Division 1 South.

From the pushback Shepton stormed into an early lead rocking the visitors back onto their heels.

However, Oke composed themselves and settled into the game with and Luke Maxa capitalised on Speak’s through ball to equalise by deflecting the ball into the net.

Fresh with goal scoring in his mind Maxa scored his second and as Oke upped the tempo and as their forwards combined, Speak set up Maxa to convert, scoring his hat-trick before half time.

Shepton began to chase the game, and grabbed one back before half time, and then on the half time whistle, Shepton were awarded a short corner, and a chance to level the score which they took.

Fired up, the home side came out of the blocks hard to start the second half charging in search of a goal, and they duly earned their reward.

With solid defence at the back and encouraging performances from some of Oke’s younger players the defence tightened up and keeping the home side at bay. Okey grabbed a rare turnover ball and raced back down the pitch forcing a penalty corner; this turned into a series of short corners and finally a penalty flick as the Okehampton player was fouled en route to goal.

Up stepped captain Liversidge to slot the ball home and Oke were delighted to come home with a share of the spoils.

Next week they have a home game against the University of Exeter 4’s with a 12.15pm start on the college all-weather pitch. As always support will be welcomed.

l THE seconds faced a very young skilful Truro team who are pushing hard for promotion from Piran Division Two.

The deadlock of an even, end to end first half, was broken when Isaac Jolley snuck in on the far post and converted an accurate cross to take Okehampton into a 1-0 lead at half-time.

Sadly Oke were unable to add to their score and as the clock ticked away, Truro’s skill and organisational play gradually got the better of the home side.

Try as they might, Okehampton’s defence was eventually breached and gradually Truro built their score and took away all the points with a 1-4 win.

Next week’s encounter for the seconds will be another tough one as they travel to play Caradon 2’s who are currently second in the league before they take a well earned break for Christmas.