Crawley 2’s 4 – 4 Lewes 2’s (Lewes won 4-2 on flicks)

Crawley 2’s 4 – 4 Lewes 2’s (Lewes won 4-2 on flicks)

Crawley 2’s knew that this was going to be a tough match, with Lewes 2’s having been in the Division above them in the previous season. From the start, Lewes produced some slick passing and movement that Crawley struggled to live with, compounded by Russell Hales putting his back out in the first 5 mins meaning a quick rejig of the starting line up
Crawley were putting in the effort and were willing runners but could not get hold of the ball and went quickly went 0-2 down. Then Karl Bass got a yellow card which Lewes capitalised on to make it 0-3. When Karl Bass returned to the fray, Crawley never gave up and showed great mental strength to not let their heads go down and kept playing. They got their reward when Alex Coote dribbled into “D” and in a goalmouth scramble the ball fell to Liam Mulcalhy who couldn’t miss from 1 yard out so Crawley went into half time 1-3 down.
Crawley knew that there running could produce the reward and stuck at their task, and won a short corner after some good pressing which Karl Bass converted expertly. Crawley next two short corners were again converted, with Karl Bass lethal from the top of “D” which meant Crawley had turned the game on its head and went 4-3 up.
Crawley kept the effort up but Simon Teale took a nasty blow to the wrist and then Scott Gibbons also took a whack to the leg, leaving Crawley with only 10 fit players on the pitch. Lewes started to exert pressure and it told with them drawing level with a few minutes left. The full time whistle meant that the game went to penalty strokes.
Crawley sadly missed 3 of their 5 strokes, with Lewes showing cooler heads and took the win despite Chris Rockingham’s athletic efforts in goal.