HOCKEY
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IT took a Kelly Baker goal two minutes from full-time to give Bathurst City a share of the competition points in Saturday’s women’s Premier League Hockey match against Lithgow Panthers, but her strike brought with it something even more important.
Her goal saw City draw 1-all with a Panthers side who beat them 5-2 back in May and it gave the Bathurst players a massive confidence boost as they look towards the business end of the season.
In fact City talent Casey Bayliss felt her side should have been making the trip home from Lithgow as first team to beat Panthers this season.
“It was just fantastic how we played today, we played all over them and dominated, we just couldn’t finish our chances,” Bayliss said.
“We had them under the pump the whole game and even after they scored the first goal, I never thought that we were going to lose and that was the vibe from the whole team as well.
“We might have walked off with a draw, but we know we can beat them now. If we had of capitalised on our chances we could have won that game 5-1.”
While many of City’s younger players were nervous going into the match, it did not take them long to settle into the contest against the undefeated competition leaders.
City also had to shuffle their halves combination, with Claire Sullivan, Aimee Ashcroft and Hannah Evans all spending time in those positions. It was an area of their line-up the visitors felt could have been a weakness, but that was not the case.
Regular defender Sullivan came up with one of the biggest defensive plays of the match as well, stopping a Panthers attempt on the line.
City also repelled four Panthers short corners, but Lithgow finally managed to breach the defence of the Bathurst side early in the second half.
“It was their fullback who scored and it was a great goal. No-one stepped up on her and she had space to shoot and she just smashed it,” Bayliss said.
But rather than drop their heads after falling behind 1-0, City continued to pressure in attack.
Finally, with two minutes left on the clock, their efforts were rewarded when Baker scored from a penalty corner play to make it 1-all.
“It felt pretty good that game and it will give the young girls a lot of confidence ... they were pretty nervous before the game but they all stepped up like we needed them too,” Bayliss said.
“Their goalkeeper did make some good saves, but we weren’t on her pads for those rebounds like we should have been. At one stage Jess Hotham had the ball on the seven in front of an open goal and she somehow hit the ball into Kelly Baker’s foot - we had silly things like that. But overall it was just a great game.”
BATHURST CITY 1 (Kelly Baker) drew with LITHGOW PANTHERS 1