Lower Great Southern’s Georgina Lilford nets hat-trick in WA women’s sole country championships win

The WA women’s side ended their Australian Country Championships campaign in sixth place after a loss to South Australia in the playoff game on Saturday. Lower Great Southern Hockey Association’s Georgina Lilford featured in all six of games and was a shining light in an otherwise disappointing campaign, netting a hat-trick in their sole qualifying win against SA. Lilford put through two penalty corners and a field-goal conversion inside 25 minutes in the 4-1 triumph but WA failed to find the back of the net in any of their other fixtures. SA’s Natasha Hammond answered back before Alana Walsh sealed the win for WA with a penalty stroke conversion in the 48th minute. SA reversed their pool loss in the final game on Saturday night with a 4-0 win over WA in the classification game. Trinity Schmidt, Hammond, Dana Jones and Jordan Ganley all scored for SA in the crushing result. WA had four penalty corner attempts to SA’s three but struggled to find any meaningful breakthrough in the final third. In the pool standings WA finished fifth after initial heavy defeats to NSW, Australian Defence Force, Victoria and Queensland.