Central West Premier League Hockey: Orange CYMS defeat first placed Lithgow Panthers 4-2

Beating them at their home field? Well that's just remarkable.

Orange CYMS are a team capable of the remarkable and their whirlwhind Central West Premier League Hockey season just got more interesting after defeating Lithgow Panthers 4-2 at Lithgow.

Sitting at the lower end of the ladder, CYMS were able to turn around an early 1-0 deficit with Ally Thurn, Adi Champson, Madison Smith and Kayla Russell all getting on the score-sheet.

"We played as a team, threw the ball around, worked hard and it all came together," Smith said.

"Not taking anything away from our performance, they had a few players out for NSW Country training but we also had a player out.

"It was a must-win game for us to keep our finals hopes alive, we need to win every game to make finals now, we knew we had to win and went out there and did that.

"They scored the first goal ... so we knew they were here to play but we didn't drop our heads and went up from there."

After a significant roster turnover in the pre-season, CYMS have forever been looking for cohesion in its performances throughout 2022.

Inconsistency has unfortunately been their Achilles heel with close losses hurting them.

With that in mind, Smith believes Saturday's win had been a long time coming.

"Definitely (had been coming)," Smith said.

"If you go back and look at results, our last game against Panthers we only lost 1-0, we played St Pat's last week and lost 2-1 after they scored in the last two minutes. We've had close games where we can't quite get there so I do think it's been coming for a while.

"It was nice to actually put goals in the back of the net."

With three games remaining in the regular season, every match is as important as the other for CYMS as they look to move up from sixth.

CYMS currently sit on 12 points while Parkes are in fourth on 16. Their remaining games pits them against Parkes this weekend, Orange United after that and Souths at Bathurst to round off the season.

CYMS will need to win every game and rely on other results if they're to make finals and defend their 2021 crown.

"They're winnable games, we've just got to turn up on the day and play good hockey," Smith added.

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