The Caesareans finished 57-49 down at the hands of Team Bath A on Saturday – disrupting their chase for the sole promotion play-off berth in South West Regional League Division I.
They did recover to beat strugglers Whitchurch 48-36, but they remain three points behind unbeaten leaders Aquarians at the midway point of the season, having already lost to (and played a game more than) their title rivals.
Coach Linda Andrews said: ‘The Whitchurch game … it was so important to come out with a win and restore the faith, because the loss was hard to take.
‘Whether it [the Bath defeat] is costly or not, we don’t know. We just need people to beat Aquarians now and there are teams who are more than capable of doing that if they’ve got their strongest team out.’
Jets and Bath were tied at 13-13 and 27-27 at the end of the first two periods, before the latter edged their noses in front at 40-43.
Jets pulled back to 46 apiece before a lack of concentration proved the difference.
‘There were four silly mistakes,’ Andrews explained.
‘We could have won it. When you’re playing against a team that’s as good as you it’s important to make those clinical decisions when under pressure. That’s what let us down and it was only six minutes in the last quarter that lost us the game.’
In a similar fashion to Saturday’s game, Jets and Whitchurch were level at 11-11 and 21-21 at the end of Q1 and Q2 respectively, before Jets hammered home the importance of accuracy when feeding the circle.
Interceptions galore quickly gave the Islanders the advantage, with a 16-5 third-quarter score deflating the Whitchurch squad.
Andrews added: ‘In the third quarter Molly Carré had an absolute stormer.
‘Our defensive end took six interceptions, which we managed to get to the shooters and they converted. That gave us a bit of a break.’
More in Monday’s JEP.
