Keswick Men’s firsts continued their title push with a 3-0 home win over Alderley Edge 2nds.
They currently trail leaders Timperley by two points while Alderley Edge were fourth at start of play, more than ten points behind their hosts.
Keswick started brightly with the defence looking rock solid, and any tackles they had to make were quickly turned into counter attacks from accurate passes to stick by Ed Hunter and captain Shaun Wilson.
In addition some aerial passes from Tom Morgan kept the visitors midfield on the backfoot.
The Edge’s keeper was soon in action, and he pulled off a string of saves to keep his team level.
The parity lasted until the 15th minute when Dan Owen was able to finally beat the young Alderley keeper.
For all their pressure, Keswick then found themselves in a midfield battle, with both teams cancelling each other out for long periods in the run up to half time.
However, the Alderley keeper made another three good saves while Will Anderson, the Keswick goalkeeper, had to keep his concentration levels high and he pulled off a great save as Alderley made a rare break into the Keswick D just before the break.
Alderley had put a lot of effort into containing Keswick before the break, and as the second half got going, runs from Mark Proctor and Luke Heap signalled it was going to be a long half for the visitors.
It was again their keeper who came to their rescue with good saves from Mark Bowen and Rob Cook before Keswick thought they had scored after 13 minutes. Although Owen had the ball in the net, the umpire indicated the ball had come off a Keswick foot in the build-up and so it was ruled out.
Keswick had to wait until the 28th minute for their second when Luke Heap gained his reward for repeated runs into the D. He followed up with his second and Keswick’s third on 31 minutes.
The win allowed Keswick to maintain the pressure on leaders Timperley, while the Alderley keeper probably got enough votes not only to be man of the match, but to win next week’s award as well.
