Hoping to continue with their winning run Maidstone didn’t get off to the best of starts when Ashford took the lead from a short corner in the first 5 minutes! However the team have shown great fighting spirit and togetherness all season and within a minute found an equaliser when a great clearance out of defence from smithy eventually found Shrey on the left wing who crossed the ball to find Hannah unmarked in the d to fire a great shot to the inside of the left post to make it 1-1.
The game became a little scrappy but with 15 minutes played Ashford once again took the lead from a short corner.
Undeterred Maidstone continued to fight hard with Hannah, Katie and Ellie all making life difficult for Ashford in the middle and freeing up space for Nikki, Ava, Shrey and Robyn to attack down the wings and create scoring opportunities and Maidstone equalised again after 25 minutes when Ellie was on hand at the right post to follow up Shrey’s shot.
The defensive line of Caroline, Lu,Smithy, Bella, Liv and Vicky in goal were now frustrating the Ashford attack with some solid tackling and tighter marking allowing the team to push forward more and virtually took the lead on the stroke of halftime when Ellie again scored from the right post position following up I think the initial shot from Nikki?
The second half saw Maidstone play as the better of the 2 teams, the defence were solid, the middle trio of Katie, Hannah and Ellie were determined in getting to the ball first to break up any Ashford attack and Nikki and Ava were playing intelligent balls into Shrey and Robyn to put Ashford under pressure and several players had opportunities to extend our lead but the Ashford keeper made several good saves. Unfortunately with only a few minutes remaining Ashford equalised. Final score 3-3 , the team definitely deserved the win and felt robbed but nonetheless a great fighting team performance