Sidmouth and Ottery Hockey Club (SOHC) ladies first team lost a seventh successive match as they went down 5-2 at Bridgwater.

The ladies travelled for what had been dubbed a ‘must-win’ encounter with a home side that had banked only a single point in their campaign to date.

Conditions in North Somerset were of the wet variety, but both teams made bright starts to the match.

Nicky Lockyer was prominent in the early exchanges for SOH, making a number of incisive runs into the home D.

However, despite the crisp passing and slick approach play, the visitors could not find a goal that their enterprise deserved.

As tends to happen to teams not enjoying the best of fortunes in their season and, generally following a period of unrewarded pressure, they fell behind as the home team clinically finished off a counter-attack. A second goal followed just before the break to leave SOHC needing to mount a second half recovery.

Whatever was said during the interval certainly worked for SOHC came flying out of the traps after the restart and two goals in three early second half minutes from Maisie Pritchard and Karen Dutton saw parity restored.

What the team needed then was to hold the initiative, but, in almost the blink of an eye, the home side hit back to score two quick-fire goals of their own to leave SOHC with another mountain to climb!

Such was the Bridgwater surge that they could have added further goals, but they were denied by a superb penalty flick save from Becky Delasalle – the award coming after Sophie Hudson had stopped the ball on the line with her foot!

A fifth goal for the home side late on consigned SOHC to another disappointing score line.

However, there was enough in the all-round performance to give hope to the thinking that a much needed win is not far off!

Only in one of their nine matches so far have the ladies failed to score – that a 3-0 defeat at Sidmouth on October 24 at the hands of Wiscombe.

Tomorrow (November 14) they are once again in action at Sidmouth when they entertain a Mid Somerset side that sit seventh, three places and six points above basement-dwelling SOHC.