BATTLING Great Britain narrowly lost for the second time in 24 hours, going down 18-20 to Switzerland in the second match of their Four Nations Tournament campaign in Liverpool.
The defeat means GB cannot win the overall Tournament, but they will be determined to go out on a high with victory over Italy in their final match tomorrow.
GB began well against Switzerland with left-back Ewa Palies scored from the penalty spot after just 25 seconds, following a Swiss foul on GB pivot Lyn Byl.
Swiss left-wing Annina Ganz equalised on 3:40 but, despite their best efforts, they couldn't break through the tough GB defence, particularly GB goalkeeper Sarah Hargreaves who had a near-100 per cent save ratio for the first third of the half.
GB captain Lynn McCafferty, Britt Goodwin, Lyn Byl, Ewa Palies and a special strike from dual Swiss and GB passport holder Yvonne Leuthold increased GB's lead to 7-3 with 17 minutes gone, which lead to Swiss coach Roger Felder calling a time out for his side.
Holmris then called his own time out, bringing on attacking players Holly Lam-Moores, Kathryn Fudge and Louise Jukes for the first time and they further inspired the GB team to a 9-7 lead with six minutes of the half remaining.
But Switzerland hit back to lead 9-10 at the break, with Louise Jukes serving a two-minute penalty for holding.
The visitors extended their lead to 9-13, but GB stepped up their game and kept in touch with their opponents as Kelsi Fairbrother, Kathryn Fudge and Louise Jukes between them hit the back of the net to make the score 14-17 to the Swiss with half of the period remaining.
But just as the GB squad were getting up a head of steam again, supported by a fantastic home crowd, Hargreaves suffered an injury which required lengthy treatment and Jukes was hit by her second two-minute suspension.
Fairbrother then brought the scores to within two at 15-17, and Jukes literally smashed the ball into the Swiss net in a classic fast-break move to bring the scores within one with less than seven minutes left in the match.
Hargreaves pulled off a series of fine saves taking her total to 20 with five minutes remaining, but was clearly in pain from her previous injury. Lam-Moores then brought the crowd to a crescendo as she drew the game even on 56:07 with a great strike.
Swiss coach Felder quickly called a time out to refocus his troops going into the final passages of play and two strikes from Ganz, coupled with the Swiss defence closing down the GB offence, through any means necessary saw them home and set them up for their winner-takes-all clash with the Portuguese tomorrow at 1pm.
After the defeat, Head Coach Jesper Holmris was upbeat about the performance, saying: "We were really happy with the start today, Yvonne didn't have her best game yesterday against Portugal, but today she started at the right-back position.
"She played really well and made some good passes to her line players and it was really good and positive and we were leading 7-3 at one point. She was really looking forward to this match.
"We have a really good goalkeeper in Sarah Hargreaves - she is only 20 and she has the potential to be one of the best goalkeepers. We not only have a good goalkeeper, but we have a good defence too who are helping her a lot - we are working really well on defence and that helps Sarah a lot.
I think we made a lot less mistakes in the first spell of the first half, but throughout the game as a whole there was probably the same amount of mistakes as the first game against Portugal yesterday.
"The Swiss had a strong defence and a good goalkeeper, but I think the critical moment in the second half was when we were a player up - six against five - and normally that should mean that in this period the score to us is maybe 2-1 or 2-0, but they scored and it was 2-0 to them in this two-minute phase and this was decisive in the match in the end."
