PRESSURE: Ballarat Lady Devils' Delany Martin, right, goes shoulder-to-shoulder with Altona City at Darebin. Picture: Richard Whelan
BALLARAT Lady Devils have lost the Football Federation Victoria women's state league one grand final in extra time.Altona City claimed the premiership 3-2 after the scores were deadlocked at 2-all at the end of 90 minutes at Darebin on Sunday night.Beth Taylor and Tessa Curtain each scored for the ALMO Lady Devils.Curtain's goal came with just seconds to go at the end of the second half to force the match into overtime.Ballarat coach David Broadbent said he could not have asked for any more of his players."In the end, we were beaten by one goal by the dominant team of the season," he said.Altona City was a runaway table leader in the home-and-away season.In the early stages of the game Curtain, Nicole Carter and Beth Taylor worked well in the middle of the park to control Altona by denying them passes forward.Neither team created any real chances in the first 15 minutes, with the Lady Devils pushing crosses too deep and allowing the Altona goalkeeper to clean up easily.Altona made its first serious attacking move after 20 minutes with a corner and made full use of the situation to open the scoring.The Lady Devils worked harder to equalise, creating a number of half-chances through strong work by Delany Martin, but they were unable to beat the hard-tackling Altona defence. Ballarat's best chance came from a cross that whistled across the front of the goal, just avoiding the feet of three Lady Devil attackers. At the other end of the park, Lisa Dejong tightly marshalled her defenders, with Millie Williams rock solid in the middle of the park.She forced Altona wide where Simon Boorn-Wells and Amber Armstrong were able to hold and cover the advancing Altona forwards. In the second half, Ballarat began to attack strongly down the right wing.Fifteen minutes into the second half, shots by Tina Benoit and Curtain were repelled in a crowded goal area. The loose ball was neatly passed back to Taylor, who cracked one of her trademark long balls to bring up the equaliser. Altona then applied the blow torch, with Lady Devils forced to put their bodies on the line time after time to cut out passes and runners.Altona City eventually capitalised on a goal mouth scramble to go up 2-1. Ballarat is renowned for playing games right out and with so much at stake this was no exception.Jacki Pennell found space on the right and put in a number of dangerous crosses to Sally Gentle, Martin and Benoit to force some dramatic saves. With normal time almost over, Taylor was brought down in the middle of the park to earn a free kick.Taylor's long attacking ball allowed Curtain to get in behind the Altona defence and equalise. The extra-time winner came for Altona City when it pounced on a loose ball.