Hemp on her Everton strike: I thought 'why not?’ | OneFootball

Lauren Hemp says she was pleased to get on the scoresheet in our 3-2 victory over Everton as the curtain fell on the 2022/23 Barclays Women’s Super League season.

After a closely fought first half ended goalless, the second 45 exploded into life when the England winger teed up Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw for the Jamaican’s 19th league strike of the term.

Hemp then doubled our advantage shortly after when she drove down the right hand side and unleashed an unstoppable curling effort off the cross bar from 20-yards.

The sensational hit represented her 10th strike of the season in all competitions as she ended another tremendous campaign in sky blue.

And the 22-year-old explained her finish came instinctively after spotting Toffees goalkeeper, Courtney Brosnan, off her line.

“I thought ‘why not?’ and obviously it went in which I was grateful for,” she said.

“We wanted to score a lot of goals, the Champions League was still up for grabs especially with the result of Aston Villa and Arsenal.

“It was a case of scoring as many goals as possible. I knew the keeper was off her line and I knew as soon as I got a second I was going to have a go at it because I hadn’t taken many shots in the game.”

Following Hemp’s strike, Bunny then secured her second of the afternoon as we raced into a 3-0 lead.

However, despite our continued dominance, Everton bagged twice before the final whistle – but the result was rarely in doubt.

Although we finished level on points with third-placed Arsenal, we missed out on Champions League qualification on goal difference.

Regardless, Hemp is encouraged by our positive 2022/23 campaign and is looking forward to building on the impressive signs going into next term.

She added: “It was a good game. I think we could’ve been more clinical in the end at times, but a win is a win and that’s what we wanted.

“We would’ve loved to score more goals and conceded less, but it is what it is. A win to end the season on a high, which is great.”

“It’s something to build on and as a team to push on to be more clinical and it’s important we work hard in pre-season to start the season as we finished this one.