HOCKEY
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BATHURST City kept up the pressure for a women's Premier League Hockey major semi-final berth thanks to a comfortable 4-1 win over Dubbo on Saturday at Bob Roach Field.
City went into the round in third spot, level with Souths on points but one goal shy on for and against. They stayed in the same spot thanks to the victory.
However, with Dubbo and Ex-Services both suffering defeats, the City's effort means that a significant 10-point gap has opened up to the chasing pack.
"That's a big result for us and now with the top three [Souths, City, Lithgow Panthers] to play each other in the coming weeks it will be interesting to see who comes out where," City captain Casey Bayliss.
"The short passing is what did it for us today. The game was a little bit scrappy and it was slow at times but in patches we were doing some really good things with our passing and we were polished enough to finish things off in front of goal.
"Dubbo like to smash it through the centre, but we were prepared for that and I think we shut it down quite well. The first time we played them they surprised us with it a bit and they got the win.
"We were pretty pumped for this one though, given that they're the only side who have beaten us so far this year."
City got a perfect start when Kelsey Willott made a brilliant run into the circle and left several defenders in her wake before a reverse-stick shot found the back of the net.
Dubbo were able to slow the game down from there and work their way into it. But they couldn't create many headaches for the City defence, with Andrea Seymour and Alecia Sharwood generally able to diffuse any tricky situations.
With seven minutes to play until half-time, Meg Booth doubled City's lead after a good period in attack for the home side. A 2-0 scoreline at the break was a fair reflection of the contest.
The visitors had to be the first to score after half-time, but had no success. Instead City's Danielle Fisher made a good run to the circle before finding Bayliss with a pinpoint pass, the captain making no mistake.
With 15 minutes to play Dubbo did pull a goal back thanks to Emily Lake. On the back of that, the visitors enjoyed their best period of play and spent a good deal of time on the edge of City's circle.
But it didn't lead to any real scoring opportunities and with eight minutes left, Jess Hotham put a sealer on things when she scored her team's fourth goal.
Bayliss, Sharwood and the forward combination of Hotham and Willott were all among the standouts for the home team.
Visiting coach Craig Johnston was clearly disappointed after the game.
"Who was our best? Probably Lisa Hogan our manager. She had to sit there and struggle through it all, she's having a fight with cancer at the moment and still managed to make the trip over and do her job," he said.
"It wasn't bad luck. Bad luck is sometimes a reason for losing when you were in the contest, we were never in it today.
"We had a couple of players pull out last night and three are with the under 15s team in Lithgow for the state championships, so we were undermanned.
"City were fast, strong and determined and we couldn't keep up with them."
BATHURST CITY 4 (Kelsey Willott, Jess Hotham, Casey Bayliss, Meg Booth) defeated DUBBO BLUE JAYS 1 (Emily Lake)