BOLTON Hockey Club’s women’s firsts made it seven successive wins with a 3-1 victory over Wrexham Glyndwr in North West Women’s Two South.

The Boltonians travelled to north Wales in good spirits and donning a new kit but on arrival a sandy surface suggested it may be a slow-paced game.

And initially it was a change of pace that Bolton were slow to respond to.

The game started evenly, with Bolton having the first glimpse at the Wrexham goal, but the hosts were quick on the break and won a short corner against the run of play.

They capitalised on the early penalty corner with a conversion that took an unfortunate deflection off Bolton’s defensive runner, redirecting the shot into the top corner.

With Bolton now on the back foot, they once again looked to take the game to Wrexham with Chloe Frost exposing the home defence with her pace and finding some crucial passes for the strikers who came close on numerous occasions but could not convert the chances.

Bolton goalkeeper Nyemh Johnson then made a crucial save when Wrexham broke through the Bolton defensive line smothering the ball at the striker’s feet to keep her side in the game.

The visitors had to adapt their usual fast-paced and passing game due to the pitch conditions with midfielders Emily Wilkes and Elena Hawkrigg having to change to a short-passing game.

And they were back on level terms before half time when Alex Roe cut a line from defence through Wrexham’s midfield looking to advance the game, finding Jenny Brookfield in a tight spot at the top of the Wrexham D.

Brookfield played a square pass to the advancing Lu Bull who, taking the ball in her stride, drove to the right before striking across goal to find the left bottom corner to equalise.

The second half restarted with a confident Bolton finding their rhythm, Donna Hennessy at centre-back orchestrating a strong defensive press in front of her which forced Wrexham into turning over the ball.

Bolton were quick to capitalise on this, forcing Wrexham to switch the ball to their right-back and the pressure from Angelie Chitre and Brookfield forced the home defender to play the ball directly to Bull who found a through pass to Emma Swinnerton who had made a forward run through the defensive line.

As Bolton advanced into the D, Swinnerton found the killer pass into Chrystal Swaries who dispatched a strong shot past the advancing keeper to make it 2-1.

Wrexham continued to play well, but Bolton’s defence of Hennessy, Varney, Roe and Clarke stood strong, nipping the hosts’ advances in the bud before they reached the D. With the press proving successful for Bolton, pressure from right midfielder Kirsten Price forced Wrexham into making an error, this time it was Hawkrigg who was on hand to pounce.

Hawkrigg attacked the Wrexham defence at pace, beating three players before driving a hard cross across the D where Brookfield rounded off her player-of-the match performance by meeting the ball with a first time slap and rocketing it into the corner.

The women’s seconds went down 4-2 against Wigan’s firsts on home soil in North West Women’s Four East

Bolton won the toss and chose to defend the bottom half of the pitch away from the sunshine directly in keeper Nina Jones’ eyes.

Luck was not on their side, however, and the back line of Debbie Nicholson, Jo Tanner and Hannah Payne were soon on the back foot, with an unfortunate error giving Wigan an own goal within the first two minutes.

The visitors were soon on the attack again, with a wayward back-pass seeing the Wigan forward quickly sweep up to make it 2-0.

With Bolton’s heads going down, Debbie Green found pace and space along the right, crossing a powerful ball to the waiting Emily Hawkrigg who tipped it into the net to halve the deficit at half time.

Bolton rallied and came out a better team in the second half, with an attack from the midfield winning a penalty corner. Jude Gough passed to Viv Lake at top of the D, who scooped the ball to a running Erin Turner on the post and she chipped the ball perfectly past the keeper.

Bolton were back in the game with more attacks from Tash Johnson and Mathilda Bainbridge who were both unfortunate not to find the net.

But they were caught on the break as well-organised set-plays saw the visitors score twice more to seal victory.

Bolton’s women’s thirds had an early start on Saturday with a game away at Oldham thirds in North West Women’s Six East and the hosts were dominant early on.

But the young Bolton side grew into the game, winning a short corner on the stroke of half time, which was expertly converted by captain Katie Bent to give them the lead at the interval.

The hosts started the second half looking for an equaliser but the Bolton defence held strong defending numerous short corners and cutting out Oldham’s opportunities.

Despite Bolton defending strongly, though, Oldham found an equaliser from a tap-in at the back post.

This motivated Bolton to push for a winner which duly came from a sublime finish from Louisa Yoxall who smashed the ball in from the top of the circle with only a matter of minutes left to seal a 2-1 triumph and another fantastic win for fourth-placed Bolton.