Balclutha women’s team took on the Roslyn Premier Squad at Balclutha Showgrounds for the last game in their premier league last weekend, with a bare minimum of 11 players taking the field.
The Leishman Funeral Services-sponsored team started strongly, competing well.
Unfortunately, the Roslyn women broke though Balclutha’s defence and scored 20 minutes into the match.
The Balclutha girls kept their heads up, but Roslyn scored a second, shortly after.
Showing their experience and skills, just before half-time, Roslyn struck again to make the score 3-0.
With minutes remaining in the first half, Balclutha captain Stacey Bell completed an amazing tackle but went down, landing on her shoulder awkwardly. This resulted in a broken collar bone.
This left the team going into the second half goalless, and down to 10 players.
After the restart, the Balclutha women came back on to the pitch with determination to get on the scoreboard and do their captain proud.
Fiona McLaughlin moved back into the midfield in an attempt to hold Roslyn back from scoring, leaving only one player up front.
Thankfully, Katie Murray arrived 10 minutes into the second half to help out up front.
Lilly Patterson, Beth Davies and Waniya Khan had some good combinations in the midfield while our defence line of Aida Begg, Kelsie Hamilton, Brier Marsden and Petra Anderson played a typically solid game.
Goalkeeper Trinity Bradbury delivered another standout performance, saving an impressive 36 strikes on goal.
The team refused to back down and kept pushing forward but, unfortunately couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net.
However, the Balclutha women made a great effort keeping Roslyn at bay throughout the second half to keep the score board 3-0 at the final whistle.
There were some stand-out performances from McLaughlin and Bradbury.
Player-of-the-day went to Lilly Patterson.
For the remainder of the season, the women’s competition will be split into three divisions.
By Jess Craik