Bec Lee and her Canberra Chill teammates were nervously following the Tassie Tigers and Perth Thundersticks game on Saturday, November 2, with some players so anxious that they couldn't bare to watch the match.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Chill was sitting in fourth place on the Women's Hockey One ladder going into the final round and were on the bye, meaning the team couldn't do anything to improve its position.
All Chill could do was sit back and hope that the then winless Tigers could find a result against the Thundersticks, with the Perth side knowing that if it could win it would jump the Chill and play semi-finals.
And while the odds weren't in the Tigers' favour, the team still managed to snag a dramatic 5-3 win against the Western Australian team.
Lee, who was following the match on Kayo Sports, said she was excited with the result.
"I had plans, so I thought I'd put it on and just check what the score was," she explained.
"I put it on and Tassie had just scored and I was like, 'Oh my God'. So I ended up watching the whole game and we were updating our team on social media.
"A lot of people weren't watching it because they couldn't deal with the stress."
Now Lee and her Chill teammates will take on minor premiers HC Melbourne on Sunday and she knows it'll be a tough ask.
But that ask will be a little bit easier thanks to the return of a trio of Hockeyroos stars - Kalindi Commerford, Edwina Bone and Brooke Peris.
"To be honest, I think the game we played against Melbourne [earlier in the season] was one of our best performances," Lee said.
"It was only 2-0. It was a pretty tight match and we pretty much kept them out for the entire first half.
"So I'm feeling quietly confident that we aren't out of our league, considering we qualified for finals without our Hockeyroos. Now we've got the three Hockeyroos back. They're amazing and they bring so much energy to the team."
HC Melbourne have won five of their six regular season matches, with the team losing its final match of the season on penalties, after the match against Adelaide Fire finishing in a 1-all draw.
HC and Chill clashed back on October 18, with goals from Madi Ratcliffe and Hannah Gravenall the difference at the State Netball and Hockey Centre in Melbourne.
Lee has played in all six regular season matches for Chill and said she has retained a position in the matchday squad for Sunday's elimination semi-final even after the return of the three Hockeyroos representatives.
Chill will travel to Victoria to face HC Melbourne on Sunday at the State Netball and Hockey Centre, with the match set to get underway at 2.30pm.