Sophie Bray led the way on the final day of action as East Grinstead’s women qualified for indoor hockey’s semi-finals for the first time.

England and Great Britain international Bray netted four times as Grinstead finished with a 7-3 win over Sutton Coldfield to end up second in the Hockey 5s Championships at Bromsgrove School.

They will now go forward to face Slough at Kettering on Saturday evening for a place in the final at Wembley on January 25.

Unlike the men, the semi-finals are not held at Wembley – a quirk in the scheduling of domestic indoor hockey which is hard to explain.

However, it is still a tremendous achievement for the women to reach the last four and complete a double for the club over the weekend with the men also qualifying from their group.

While the men have been national champions for a record six years in a row and ten times in total, this is new territory for their fast progressing ladies section to reach the semi-finals.

Coach Mary Booth said: “It is fantastic for the club and really exciting.

“We will be playing Slough who beat us 4-2 in the first weekend of action but we were without three players then.

“We have the squad and we will work on a few things this week before going to Kettering where hopefully we can get the job done.

“It is a shame we don’t go straight to Wembley but it would be fantastic for the club if we could win and join the men there.”

East Grinstead women had two wins from four games from the opening weekend of league action last month and moved up to second in the table with victories in both their games on Saturday.

However, with two of their rivals for finals night to play, they still had a lot of work to do.

They opened yesterday’s action with a 2-2 draw against Bowdon Hightown, who went on to finish top of the nine-team group, Bray scoring twice.

That left Grinstead needing to beat Sutton Coldfield in their final game, which they duly did, with Heather Batten, Pippa Rabey and Kara Haines joining Bray on the scoresheet.

In the final standings only a single point separated the top five sides, with Reading missing out on the semi-finals on goal difference while Sutton Coldfield also failed to qualify by virtue of their defeat to Grinstead.

On Saturday, the Sussex side opened with a 4-2 victory over University of Birmingham thanks to goals from Haines (two), Rabey and Bray.

They then beat Clifton 6-2 with Lis Caillard (two), JoJo Davies, Bara Kavanova, Batten and Rabey on target.

East Grinstead’s men finished top of their standings with seven wins from eight across the two weekends at St Georges Park, Burton.

They suffered a 12-3 defeat on Saturday to Holcombe, who failed to make finals night after finishing fifth.

However, Grinstead were otherwise in splendid form with Niall Stott, in particular, enjoying an outstanding weekend.

Stott scored a hat-trick on Saturday as Grinstead opened with a 7-1 defeat of Surbiton, with further goals coming from Simon Faulkner (two), Chris Griffiths and Glenn Kirkham.

Yesterday Stott scored six as Grinstead beat Canterbury 8-5 and then another five as they finished with a 10-5 defeat of Bowdon.