City Women were defeated on penalties after an enthralling 2-2 draw with Wrexham in the Genero Adran Trophy final.
Head Coach Iain Darbyshire elected to make three changes to the side that beat TNS last time out, with Hannah Power, Laura Curnock and Mikayla Cook all coming into the starting XI.
City were forced to soak up the pressure in the opening stages, but showed their attacking quality as Ffion Price delivered a free-kick into the area, where Curnock was waiting and almost gave her side the lead in the opening 10 minutes.
From the resulting corner, Mackenzie Olden delivered a ball to the near post, where Shannon Evans made a smart run to the near post and headed home brilliantly to put City ahead.
The Bluebirds maintained the pressure after going ahead, working the ball out well to wide areas, with Olden putting one across the face of goal that just evaded her teammates in the area, while Lily Billingham also forced Liz Craven into a stop from an acute angle.
Wrexham hit back however, through a long-ranged strike from Ava Suckley shortly before the half hour mark, but with the game looking like it would be level at the break, Cook put City ahead again. Olden hit the crossbar with a spectacular free-kick, and the winger anticipated it well and fired home on the stroke of half time.
After the break, City sustained even more pressure from the opposition but were pulled back level following a fine effort from Maria Francis-Jones with 11 minutes to play.
With nothing to separate the two teams after 90 minutes, it went to penalties, where the Bluebirds fell to a narrow defeat.
City have the opportunity to avenge today’s loss as the two sides face off once again next week at Cardiff City Stadium, with a kick-off of 3pm on Saturday 28th February.
FINAL SCORE: WREXHAM AFC WOMEN 2-2 CARDIFF CITY WOMEN (4-2 PENS)
Cardiff City: Chamberlain, Owen, Bowen, S. Evans, Price, Jenkins, Power ©, Billingham (Lloyd 89’), Cook (Walklett 69’), Olden, Curnock (Barry 69’)
Subs Not Used: Saunders, Long, Thomas, Perrott
Wrexham: Craven, Davies, Bartle, Wildgose, Francis-Jones, Smith, L. Jones (Mahmood 69’), Harvey, Barker, Knox, Suckley (Clark 85’)
Subs Not Used: Ankers, Lovett, Clark, Snape, C. Jones, Mahmood, Sadler
REACTION | IAIN DARBYSHIRE
“I’m very proud of the team's performance today. Iain began. “I thought we were fantastic over the 90 minutes, and on another day the result goes the other way. But I'm immensely proud of the staff, the players, and all the effort they just put into that game.
“Penalties are a lottery, and we knew that going into it. We went into confident but congratulations to Wrexham for managing to pull off the win. Our focus now goes to recovering, having a little bit of rest and then straight back into it this weekend in front of our home fans, where it'd be amazing to see so many people at CCS cheering us on for what's going to be a fantastic game.”