Keswick Ladies Firsts were at home to Kirkby Stephen Development on Saturday and were on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline.
Although a development team, the visitors had a strong spine of seasoned players, and this worked wonders for the younger members of their team.
The older players did most of the hard work, but their young team-mates were brought into play at every opportunity and proved very effective on the ball.
Freya Murphy made several good runs as she was fed by Julie Hope and Debbie Barr.
At the back for Keswick Kate Armstrong and Fiona Chapman played well in tandem to thwart the Kirkby Stephen attacks and set the home side on their own counters.
Keswick were awarded the first short corner after 11 minutes but Rachel Armstrong’s shot was blocked by Izzy Thompson in goal for Kirkby, and the follow up effort from Emily Willdig was scrambled to safety by the defence.
Kirkby’s Lucy Potter then became more involved in the visitors’ attack with her runs becoming more frequent and causing problems each time she got possession.
It was Potter on 21minutes who broke the deadlock, with her shot giving Heather Ingram no chance in the Keswick goal.
There were more attacks and counter attacking but at half- time the score remained 1-0 to Kirkby.
The second half was similar to the first with the Kirkby core playing strongly and creating spaces for their youngsters to run into and try to exploit.
Keswick knew what to expect this time as Kat Miller, Anna Williams, and Cara Websdale created plenty of problems for the visitors midfield and defence. Sophie Canham made good runs into the D to harry Thompson in the Kirkby goal.
The visitors scored their second on 13 minutes as Hope ran into the D and shot across Ingram, and on 19 minutes it was one of Kirkby’s younger players, Murphy, who was in the right place at the back post to turn in a shot parried by Ingram.
Myrtle Ashworth kept up her recent good scoring record to pull one back for Keswick after 26 minutes, but despite keeping up the pressure on the Kirkby defence until the end they were unable to break through again.
