After recovering a two-goal deficit to take a point at league leaders Moneyfields on Thursday night, a tough week concluded with a semi-final tie against the Albion.
Libby Kingshott returned as the last line of defence, while Chloe Winchester and Lauren Amerena kept their spots after coming on in Portsmouth. Meg Curran and Becs Bell were also restored to the starting line-up with Georgia Tibble and Izzy Franklin rested to the subs bench alongside the comeback of Katie Cooper.
The first real opening fell to the hosts, thanks to Katie Young’s long ball setting Amerena racing clear of Emilie Gay and breaking into the penalty area, where a fine tackle by Jess Pegram stopped her in her tracks.
Chances generally though were proving hard to come by and it took until the twenty-fourth minute for the deadlock to be broken by the next one.
Opposing Skippers Dan Rowe and her Seagulls counterpart Elliana Martin tussled on the half-way line, with the ball breaking kindly enough for Tahirah Heron to steal it off the pair of them and hurtle down the right wing. Heron then played a perfect pass into the path of Rhianna Fowler who managed to sneak her shot narrowly inside the far post.
Just past the half-hour mark, it was two.
Heron was released along the same wing and duly burst to the byline before seeing her cross diverted in at the near post by the unfortunate Young for an own goal.
Brighton immediately made a change but they were soon facing a different half-time team talk when Franklin went long and the visitors struggled to clear the danger, allowing the alert Amerena to capitalise. Stealing possession away from Gay, her delivery was controlled in an instant by Winchester and smashed in with her second touch.
However, the two-goal margin might have been restored had Fowler not buried Martin’s lay-off into the side netting, two minutes from the break.
Almost straight after the change of ends, some neat, intricate approach work resulted in Olivia Johnson sending in a low centre that missed one of two half-time swaps, Clarabella Hall but Heron was ready and waiting to pounce. Eleanor Keegan showed tremendous bravery to block at close quarters and keep her team in the contest.
Moments later, Rowe’s free-kick was flicked on by Bell for Sophie Humphrey to nearly pull another one back, only for substitute May Balmer to also deny at short range and receive a whack for her troubles, as she put her foot in where it hurts.
Johnson drilled across a low delivery that simply needed someone on the end of it but went unpunished, much to the relief of the home support prior to the impressive Evie Milner riding a couple of challenges and releasing Heron once more.
This time the fleet-footed winger was quickly met by goalkeeper Kingshott, who had rushed to the corner of her eighteen yard box to meet her. Possessing the wherewithal to shoot early, over the onrushing netminder, the Albion’s number forty-eight was a whisker away from making it three-one, when her lobbed effort dropped a fraction the wrong side of the back stick.
Unfortunately for the Reds though, that third strike wasn’t long in coming. Arriving, indeed, less than 120 seconds further on.
Worthing’s attempts at playing out from the back were thwarted by Gay’s interception and rapid slide-rule pass for Hall to latch onto. The interval introduction held off the close attentions of Young to slot past Kingshott, despite Dani Lane’s backtracking and subsequent presence on the line.
Midway through the second period, Hall nearly doubled her tally, following Heron making hay on the left and drifting inside to provide the platform for Gay to slip in Johnson; Kingshott getting down well at her front stick, though relieved to watch the ball whizz inches past the opposite apparatus.
Rebels’ custodian then did brilliantly to deny Hall’s latest effort, after she’d been picked out inside the area and sidestepped the recently introduced Franklin. Izzy showed great powers of recovery to deny an incoming Johnson on the follow-up.
Time began to tick away, reducing the home sides’ chances of forcing a penalty shootout, as the game entered the final few minutes.
The prospect of facing Lewes in the Final almost evaporated courtesy of Gay spreading play out to the right, where Johnson picked up the baton, left Holly Talbut-Smith in her slipstream and fired a powerful shot that Kingshott did brilliantly to parry. Hall unable to keep the rebound low enough to put the game to bed.
Not that it would have counted anyway, thanks to the assistant referee on the far side raising his flag for offside.
The returning Cooper then had Bell scurrying into space, where the replacement had dispatched the perfect ball for the Speed Queen to run onto, reach the byline with and cross for another sub, Tibble to head marginally over the angle of crossbar and post.
Amerena’s juggling skills were met with Cooper’s nifty footwork not long after that, which created room for a short pass to Rowe, followed by a longer one for an unmarked Bell that ended via a deflection into the arms of Lily Murray, deep into added time but the ref blew his whistle shortly afterwards and it was the Seagulls who continued on their flight path to the final.
