St Albans extends unbeaten streak to four with win over Springvale
By Brad Hutchings (@BradHutchings)
Photo Eran Ercan
St Albans Saints have made it four games without a loss on the trot, edging out Springvale White Eagles at Churchill Reserve on Sunday afternoon.
It was a dominant display by the home side who controlled the encounter from start to finish.
Springvale was barely given a sniff all day as the Saints kept the pressure on the top two in the NPL 1 West.
Striker Nicholas Scerri landed the only goal in the afternoon in the 13th minute which proved enough for St Albans to record its seventh win of the campaign.
It could have easily been a couple more goals for the home side who dominated the shot count but couldn’t find a way pass Nebosja Vujic in the White Eagles goals.
It mattered little with the Springvale forward line offering almost nothing in attack, resulting in a quiet day at the office for Saints goalkeeper Stuart Webster.
Easily on top of the early stages St Albans carried that advantage onto the scoreboard it the 13th minute when Scerri snuck out of the clutches of the White Eagles defence to break free in front of goal and slide the ball in for the opener.
The home side continued to control the game after finding the back of the net and weren’t under any real pressure during the first half.
They came exceptionally close to making it two goals twice in the dying stages of the first 45 through Scerri who couldn’t get his close-range header on target then when Trent Waterson's spectacular aerial effort was denied by Vujic then the post.
The second half was a rather flat affair with Springvale still unable to make any meaningful attacks on the opposition goal.
Their only decent sight on goal came in the 50th minute when Milan Jovanvic had two cracks on goal with both unable to find the net.
Scerri looked like the only one with his shooting boots on, coming close to bagging another goal seven minutes into the second half but couldn’t get his shot on goal after doing well to break free in the box.
In the end, St Albans ran away with a comfortable win.
Full Time: St Albans Saints 1 (Scerri 13’) defeats Springvale White Eagles at Churchill Reserve. [HT: 1-0]
St Albans Saints: Stuart Webster, Yew Otuo-Acheamaong (Anthony Boras 82’) , Nicholas Sarbin, Trent Waterson, Ross Harvey,Devlin Barry, TomislavTrbuhovic, Nicholas Scerri, Konrad Dobraszkiewicz (TedrosYabio 71’), Ben Shaper, Daniel Sweeney(Ante Kozul 78’)
Unused Subs: Damien Peters, JohnScollo
Yellow Cards: Otuo-Acheamaong 33’, Sarbin 43’
Springvale White Eagles:NebosjaVujic, Jordan Ballerini, Sime Jovanavic, Zarko Milojevic, Stojan Milojevic (Sebastian Lecaros46’), Marcus Holmes, Milan Jovanavic, Keletso Mthembu (Mahdi Mahmodi 78’), Slavisa Saric, Dejan Erakovic (Trent Hansen 61’), Anthony Selemidis
Unuesd Subs: Jeremy Sandoval
Yellow Cards: None
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