TWO brilliant Stirling Albion goals sent Elgin City spinning to their fourth defeat in a row.
But City boss Ross Jack insists the fight for promotion goes on despite Saturday's 2-1 home loss.
Veteran Kieran McAnespie netted two brilliant left foot volleys for Albion, with Stuart Leslie's header cancelling out the first one.
Manager Jack admitted his team did not produced enough quality to turn the match around in the second half.
But he said other results gave Elgin a lifeline, and urged his players to up their performance on Tuesday night when second placed Queens Park visit Borough Briggs.
“I thought we had used up all of our lifelines but we got one again today,” he said after the match in a reference to fourth placed Peterhead's shock defeat at Clyde.
“But we need to start picking up three points very, very soon.”
McAnespie's brilliant 25 yard volley opened the scoring on seven minutes, before Leslie nodded in his 15th of the season from Brian Cameron's left wing cross.
Slack defending on 37 minutes allowed McAnespie to punish a loose clearance with a guided volley into the same top corner as his first strike.
Second half sub Paul Millar came closest to equalising with a header into the side netting, while Craig Gunn forced a late save out of the Stirling keeper.
But it wasn't good enough for Elgin, who have now won just one of their last 12 games.
Jack said: “Our deliveries into the box were not good enough, and we were beaten by two wonder strikes from them.
“Nobody seemed prepared to put in a shot or throwing their head in there and take a chance,” Jack said.
“But we've got the teams above us that we need to beat still to play, starting with Queen's Park on Tuesday.
“Clearly that game is huge and we'll do our best again and fight every inch of the way to get back into the promotion pack.”
Elgin: Malin, Beveridge, McMullan (O'Donoghue 69), Crighton, Duff, Cameron, Gunn, Morrison (Millar 69), Leslie, Nicolson (Harkins 82), Moore. Subs: McHardy, Black.
