SOHC Ladies III 3, Dawlish 2 SOHC III claimed a narrow, but deserved victory in an entertaining game, writes Suzanne Thorpe.

The early pressure came from the visitors with the home defence fending off a wave of attacks orchestrated by the visitor’s skilful midfield.

The high tempo approach paid off as Dawlish struck twice. SOHC, led by influential skipper Mary Ackland dug deep, gained a foothold inthe contest, and begin to fight back. Counter , initiated by Chris Hellier, resulted in the deficit being halved thanks to a Chris Chapman goal.

Katie Ackland and Sarah Dean showed their tenacity in the midfield playing with tiger-like drive which won further short corners.

A clinical routine put pressure on the Dawlish defence and Millie Longworth put in the SOHC second goal from a rebound off the goalie’s boot.

At 2-2 many teams would have settled for a draw with many tired legs from the fast paced end-to-end game. With 15 minutes left, youth came to the fore and SOHC forwards Katie Jackson, Angharad Price-Hughes soared like eagles with individual runs down the wings achieving a further short corner which set up a third home goal and again Chapman was the scorer.

Dawlish unleashed a co-ordinated counter-attack with their centre half and centre forward combining to achieve a short corner in the last minute of the game. The first shot was intercepted jointly by Tess Paewai and Mo Mylne, the rebound shot was cleared over the back line to end the game. In this topsy-turvy game there was only one conclusion. The winner takes it all!