Ladies 1s win again.

East Division One South

Brentwood Ladies 1st XI - 3
Bishops Stortford Ladies 1st XI - 2

With both teams sat on the same points prior to the start of the game, this game promised to be a close encounter and certainly lived up to its billing. However, a confident Brentwood set the standard of game they wanted to play right from the start. Fast accurate passes throughout the whole team enabled solid attacks against the visitors. High pressure from Nikki Brimson, Lizzy Tyler, Lucy Roberts and Charlotte Holt didn’t allow Stortford any room on the ball and enabled Brentwood to maintain possession well within the opposition defending half. It wasn’t long before the team made the breakthrough winning a penalty corner and a well-controlled strike from Lauren Slater at the top of the dee put Brentwood 1 -0.
Natalie Gilder controlled the middle of the pitch, intercepting the opposition’s passes and providing excellent distributions to the wings enabling constant attacks. However, Stortford’s star player at times took the game to the home team and was unlucky not to score when her effort was saved on the line by Haylee Adams. The away team’s persistence paid off when the ball broke free inside Brentwood’s circle the Stortford forward tucked it away to level the score.
However, Brentwood didn’t let their heads drop and joint player of the match Kendall Colman began to own the right hand side of the pitch despite Stortford’s best efforts to stop her. A well worked move earned another penalty corner. Played to the top of the circle the first strike was hit sweetly by joint player of the match Ruth Tilsley. With a deflection off a Stortford defender the ball found the back of the net to give the home team a 2-1 lead at half time.
The second half saw the same intensity as the first. Bishops Stortford came back hard which allowed Lorna to show off her amazing goalkeeping skills as Bishops Stortford managed to create a few short corners and shots on goal hitting the crossbar and a second shot saved on the line by Kendall. However, Brentwood continued to soak up the pressure put on them for much of the second half, hitting Stortford on the break. When pushing high Brentwood were caught out by a quick ball and Stortford equalised.
The last stretch of the game was extremely tense but Brentwood coped well and step it up another notch earning a penalty corner in the final minutes of the game. With a sense of deja’vu Slater kept her composure and sweetly struck the ball into the goal to secure a 3-2 victory.