Oxfordshire ladies (pictured ) just failed in their bid to reach the National County finals when they hosted a qualifying tournmament at Oxford Brookes University on Sunday.

Having beaten Northants 3-2 in their first match, Oxon lost 2-1 to Shropshire, who went through to the finals.

Coached by Oxford Hawks' Paul Dunleavy, Oxon started well against an older Northants side, and earned a penalty corner after ten minutes, which was cleanly struck home by Ali Omell.

Northants soon levelled, but Oxford continued to attack well, with good interplay between Zoe Salter, Laura Smyth and Omell.

They regained the lead when Salter played a superb reverse-stick pass to Smyth, who slotted the ball home at the far post.

After the break, Oxford came out strongly, with Becca Demecek not letting anything near Evelyn Hargraves's goal with some superb tackling.

Good work from Chiara Clarke ended with a shot for Henri Coles which was initially saved. Nut the rebound was scrambled over the line by Smyth to make it 3-1.

Northants pulled a goal back with five minutes to go, but the home side held on In the game against Shropshire, Oxon took the lead with a freak goal from Smyth, who somehow deflected an attempted Shropshire pass across the back goalwards, wrong-footing the keeper and leaving everyone speechless.

After ten minutes, the home side lost captain Henri Coles with a broken finger, but Mandy Borrett stepped into the midfield role superbly.

Borrett and Witney's Sadie Lapper proved to be excellent pivots, with a number of attacks going via the midfield pair.

Despite Oxon's resolute defending, they could do nothing about Shropshire's equaliser from a superbly worked penalty corner.

The visitors took the lead ten minutes from the end, leaving the hosts with insufficient time to get the two goals they needed for the win.

But Oxon left the tournament happy with second place.