Wanganui's Tech College Old Boys gave a brave display in the catch-up match against Palmerston North Girls High School at Gonville Domain on Monday night.
The match had been deferred several times from round one of the Manawatu Women's Hockey division one championship and from the outset the Techno sidelooked vastly improved from early-season hammerings to go 1-nil up after just five minutes.
That early goal came from technical coach and team captain Michelle Low.
Game day coach Ian Glenny said from that moment on things looked positive for Techno.
"We have yet to win a game, but early on we were getting hammered," he said yesterday.
"But on Saturday we only went down 3-1 to the top side in the competition after they had beaten us 11-0 in round 1.
"While a Monday night game was not ideal for the catch-up match we went into it thinking we could actually improve again and win against PNGHS. Michelle scored within the first five minutes and things were looking good.
"Then they came out about 10 minutes later and scored the equaliser meaning we went into halftime drawn 1-all.
"The Palmy girls scored again in the first few minutes of the second spell and while we had many chances to put the ball away, we just couldn't finish it off. We did hold them out for the rest of the game to finish 2-1 down.
"We can defend all day, but we need to score goals and more than the opposition."
