South West Phoenix Firebirds recovered from a disastrous start on Sunday to fight back for a hard earned 2-2 draw against fourth-placed UWA in Perth.
With top-of-the-table Queens Park drawing with third-placed Subiaco, the result meant the Firebirds missed the chance to move up the ladder.
However, with games against Subiaco and Queens Park still to come, it's still wide open for the top three on the leaderboard.
The Firebirds went into this crucial match with their youngest team of the year, and it couldn't have started any worse as UWA opened the scoring within two minutes.
UWA doubled their lead five minutes later, after the Firebirds were again very sloppy in defence and failed to deal with situations which should have been harmless.
At 2-0 after seven minutes, it looked like a case of "how many" for UWA.
The Firebirds always refuse to lie down and worked their way back into the match.
Lucy Scott soon hit the crossbar from Katie McDermott's cross, while Shauna Wetherell started to dictate the terms in central midfield.
It was on the half-hour mark that the Firebirds got themselves back into the game.
This time, it was Scott crossing for McDermott to slot in a well-composed finish at the far post.
The game was well and truly on at half time despite the poor start, but UWA almost scored straight from the kick off, forcing Dayle Schroeder into a brilliant save.
It was to prove a vital save, as Wetherell equalised with a fine long range left foot shot less than 10 minutes later.
Now back on level terms, the Firebirds had their confidence up and took control of the game as it was being played almost exclusively in their attacking half.
However, the Firebirds were unable to make their attacking positions count as they lacked a bit of quality in the final third.
A few half-chances went begging, and the match ended in a hard-fought and well-earned draw.
The Firebirds were left to rue their slow start as they left themselves too much to do against a strong UWA line-up.
They will look to get back on track with a win in a twilight game in Bunbury against Curtin University, which kicks off at 5pm this Saturday.
The side notched up a tight 3-2 win over Wanneroo late last month, after defeating the Northern Redbacks 2-1.
June saw the Firebirds suffer a frustrating 0-2 loss to Joondalup and a 3-4 loss to Queens Park.
Earlier this year, the team took home the points against Bassendean (7-3), Fremantle City (5-1), Curtin University (4-1), UWA (6-0), Port Kennedy (2-0), and Wanneroo City (4-2)