CHIMNEY Corner under-12s' great start to the season continued on Saturday as they defeated defending champions Larne Youth.
The Antrim side came away with a fantastic 2-1 win, to sit proudly on top of the table for the first time in their history.
The Randalstown Road side started as they meant to go on, and the were very unlucky not to score with only 20 secs on the
clock as from the kick-off the ball was fed through to Stephen Hare out on the right wing, and the young Portglenone lad fired in a shot only to see it rebound off the crossbar, and Ciaran Dobbin was first to react, but his shot sailed narrowly over the crossbar.
The break-through came on 15mins, as after another Antrim attack broke down, the young Larne keeper mis-kicked the ball and Ciaran Dobbin was first to pounce and coolly rounded the keeper and slotted the ball into the corner of the net to take Corner into a well deserved lead.
Just two minutes later Corner had doubled the lead, and again it was another goal-keeping error that lead to the Antrim goal, as a long range shot was fired in but the keeper was unable to hold onto the ball, and again Dobbin got hold of the breaking ball and slid it into the goal.
After the restart Larne tried to bring themselves back into the game with some fine attacks but at the other end, Stephen Hare fired in a fine shot, but again he hit the woodwork.
Larne continued to press and they were very close to opening their scoring on 27 minutes but Lee Cosgrove was able to clear the ball off the line after a goal mouth scramble, but their perseverance paid off just 60 seconds later they caught Corner with a counter-attack from their own half and scored to reduce the arrears to a single goal at half-time.
Corner U-12: Aodhan Tolan, Tyler Hogg, Jack McLean, Kyle Garthwaite, Brendan Connolly, Ben Kerr, Michael Tolan, Lee Cosgrove, Ciaran Dobbin, Ryan Redmond (Darren McCormick 30), Stephen Hare. Subs (not used): Malachy McIvor, Jack McKitterick, Connor Cassidy.
The full article contains 371 words and appears in Antrim Times newspaper.