The big freeze didn’t prevent one West Cumbrian team from making progress in a Cup competition on Saturday.
Windscale earned their place in the final of the Alan Hood Trophy with a 1-0 win at the Falcon Complex.
Prior to kick-off the Windscale Under-13s were presented with their award for winning the Red Division of the West Cumbria Youth League.
Watched by a sizeable crowd, the teams were accompanied onto the pitch by the Atoms Under-9s squad.
Both teams were competitive but fair in a match in which referee Adam Pattinson saw the need to caution five players.
Bizarrely at this level, one was for time wasting, but none of the others approached the need for the red card.
It was the Atoms who eventually came out on top, with a goal from Lewis Jolly dividing the teams.
Possession during the first period was dominated by the Atoms who were unable to penetrate the Silksworth defensive line.
The visitors were defending deep, hoping to benefit from breakaways with long balls into the Windscale half.
As a consequence the Atoms were unable to create many clear scoring opportunities particularly due to their poor use of the ball into the final third of the pitch. The stalemate left a blank scoresheet at the interval.
The second period was a mirror image of the first half, however, the Atoms were starting to get into better scoring positions but still unable to breach the opposition defence.
Ben Reynolds, the Silksworth keeper. had a solid game, dealing competently with anything thrown at him.
In a game that seemed destined for the dreaded penalty shoot-out, the decisive goal came in the 65th minute from the penalty spot.
Matty Pierce set off on a barnstorming run into the Silksworth area. His progress was halted when he was hauled down and the referee had no other option than to award the penalty.
Jolly stepped up to fire the spot kick low inside the keepers right hand post. Keeper Reynolds managed to get a hand on the ball but was unable to prevent it hitting the back of the net.
With 12 minutes remaining, Windscale almost doubled their advantage.
A run from deep by Ross Leeson saw him weave his way through a number of challenges with his shot from close range coming back off the post.
Silksworth continued to pump long balls forward and were unfortunate on a couple of occasions not to level the scores with loose balls across goal creating havoc before going out of play.
The Atoms now wait to see who their opposition will be in the final. This will be decided on February 25 when Darlington Town take on Shildon Reserves, the venue to be confirmed.
