By Matthew McNamara

A resilient Hume City has triumphed over Ballarat Red Devils in an enthralling 3-1 win at Morshead Park Stadium on Saturday.

Anthony Proia and Johnny Buceto sent the visitors to the sheds with a two-goal advantage, before Richie Cardozo put the away side further ahead just after halftime.

A Petar Franic own goal early in the second period gave the home side some hope, but they failed to break down an energetic Hume outfit.

The match had started in the worst possible way for the home side. After just eight minutes, Melbourne Victory youth players Christopher Cristaldo and Proia linked up sublimely, the former sending a delicate chip to the advancing Proia who hammered home past the hapless Jordan Franken in the Red Devils goal.

On the half-hour mark Ballarat fell further behind. Again Hume City's youngsters combined well with Proia winning the ball in the middle of the park before releasing Cristaldo, who squared a perfectly timed ball for Buceto to tap in.

The home crowd was further deflated when Hume scored again only moments after halftime.  

Stand-in skipper Shane Rexhepi ventured forward before neatly setting the ball for left-back Johnny Stojcevski to whip into the box. Cardozo rose above Daniel O'Donnell to extend the visitors’ margin to three.

But Ballarat refused to give in and got itself back into the game within two minutes after a defensive howler from Hume saw Franjic unfortunately score into the wrong net.

With the home side trailing 3-1, Red Devils coach James Robinson turned to local youngster Michael Trigger to provide a spark through the middle.

Liam Harding almost reduced the deficit to one goal when his strike smashed against the crossbar.

The Red Devils had plenty of half-chances towards the end, the best of which fell to Dominic Swinton, but if wasn't to be as Hume ran out a 3-1 victor.

Ballarat coach James Robinson was disappointed that mistakes had cost his team dearly.

"You can sugar coat it however you want - we just weren't good enough on the day,” Robinson said.

"It was simple errors that cost us. End of the day that was the big difference.  You give a 2-0 lead and you're chasing uphill straight away.”

Hume City coach Louie Acevski was delighted to come away with the three points.

"That's our third game inside six days. We knew that after last week’s poor performance against Green Gully, we would have to bounce back and I can safely say we did that today,” Acevski said.

“It's never easy travelling to a place like Ballarat but we go home with the three points and I can't complain with that."

Match Details

Ballarat Red Devils 1 (P. Franjic OG 51’) lost to Hume City 3 (Proia 8’, Buceto 29’, Cardozo 46’) at Morshead Park Stadium [HT: 0-2]

Ballarat Red Devils: Jordan Franken, Charles King, Daniel O'Donnell, Tristan Romein, Daniel Tinker, Shaun Romein, Dominic Swinton, Dane Milovanovic (Michael Trigger 67'), Simon Murphy, Liam Harding, Harley Bosher (Ibrahim Ghulami 77')

Unused Subs: Aaron Romein, Jye Cartledge, Adrian Curtain

Yellow Cards: Swinton 15', King 55'

Red Cards: None

Hume City: Chris Oldfield, Baki Efe (Aaron Turner 46'), Shane Rexhepi, Petar Franjic, Johnny Stojcevski, Joseph Franjic, Kliment Taseski (Ali Turgut 70'), Richie Cardozo, Johnny Buceto, Christopher Cristaldo, Anthony Proia (Kaan Korkmaz 76')

Unused Subs: Evan Alexandrow-Ridley, Matthew Hennessey

Yellow Cards: Efe 14', Cristaldo 64'

Red Cards: None