Kirkby Stephen 1 South Lakes 5

SOUTH Lakes maintained their place at the top of the Cumbria League with a five-star showing in Kirkby Stephen.

They travelled to the east of the county with only 11 players, ad with no-one taking the opposition for granted.

Lakes started with the ball and were quickly on the scoresheet.

Some fantastic passing between ended with player-of-the-match Pam Robertson putting them in front from open play with only three minutes on the clock.

The visitors kept the pressure on, with good passing between Holly Nuttall, Jenny Clayton, Angela Thornton and Natalie Knowles, eventually seeing them rewarded with a short corner.

Rebecca Cook injected the ball to Nuttall, whose strike on goal was deflected off the keeper and back to Cook, who slotted home to make it 2-0 inside 10 minutes.

A third came soon after for South Lakes, as Knowles scored after some strong build-up play involving Emma Armstrong, Robertson and Nuttall.

Kirkby Stephen stepped up a gear now, and started putting pressure on their opponents.

But there were some skilful saves from Lakes keeper Rebekah Nuttall, while the defence of Suze Armstrong, Catherine Cooke and Lesley Davey worked hard to clear the ball from the D.

Eventually the pressure told, as the home side were awarded a short corner. Despite resilient efforts to keep them out, Kirkby Stephen eventually found the back of the goal to close the gap to 3-1 at half-time.

South Lakes started the second half much more in control, and applied the pressure.

They continued working as a unit, and despite not having any subs, passed the ball around to hold onto possession.

Holly Nuttall was given another chance when she dribbled the ball from the 25m line and she made no mistake by putting number four in the back of the net.

With the game in the bag, Robertson had a comical moment when she went to play an aerial ball to Angela Thornton down the line, but instead sent the ball flying over the hedge into the next field.

With only minutes to go, South Lakes were awarded another short corner. Cook injected the ball to Nuttall once more, and she passed to Clayton, who bagged number five.

Lakes' next game sees them travel to third-placed Wigton on Saturday to face one of two other sides in the division yet to taste defeat.