Manx hockey player Sienna Dunn helped England finish fourth in the 2023 EuroHockey Under-18 Championships in Germany last week.
The former King William’s College student - who is heading to university in Nottingham soon - enjoyed an impressive tournament, scoring twice and playing her role in a side packed with quality.
After narrowly going down 0-1 to one of the tournament favourites, the Netherlands, England bounced back by comfortably beating Austria with Dunn scoring twice and being named player of the match.
Next up, they had to win against an unbeaten Spain team and hope that the Netherlands didn’t score more than eight goals in their match.
The England players performed tirelessly and were rewarded with a late winner in the closing minutes to seal a dramatic 2-1 victory and, coupled with the Dutch side winning 5-0, this earned a semi-final clash with Belgium for a place in the final.
Unfortunately, the England team made a nervy start to the semi-final and it took until the second half after they went 2-0 behind that they started to show what they could do.
An early goal after the interval gave them some hope but then a defensive error allowed Belgium to score their third. England played the whole of the final quarter without a goalkeeper but could not convert their chances and the match ended 3-1 to their opponents.
The result of this was that England then faced Spain in the bronze medal play-off match. It proved to be a very tight contest, with England edging the first half but failing to convert several chances while Spain came back strongly in the second half and won it by a single goal after scoring from a short corner.
Despite missing out on a medal, Dunn earned more praise for her performances and the whole squad will have taken away a lot from the tournament.