Westies rally to return to winning ways

Josh Carey scored Westfield's winner against Montpelier Villa and went top of the club's scoring charts this season with 12 goals in all competitions.

Goals from Jake Adams and Josh Carey gave Westfield an entertaining 2-1 success at home to Montpelier Villa in Macron Store Southern Combination League Division Two.

Westfield fell behind in only the seventh minute. They failed to track the run of Trevor Wilson, who latched on to a throughball and slotted home at the near post, giving home goalkeeper Gavin Bourne no chance.

Westfield’s reaction was very good and they soon got on the front foot. Carey had a couple of shots saved from one-on-one situations, Allan McMinigal clipped the outside of the post with a spectacular volley from the edge of the box and a couple of half chances from corners went over.

Westfield finally got their reward with a decent goal from Jake Adams, who scored with a good header at the far post after McMinigal beat his man and delivered an early cross.

On the whole the first half was fairly tight and although Westfield had their chances, they were grateful for a couple of smart saves from Bourne at the other end.

The second period was much the same. Carey had a couple more opportunities, one of which was stopped on the line after beating the goalkeeper, and a couple of openings from corners weren’t capitalised on.

Westfield did hit the front when Jack Stapley’s long clearance out of defence led to Carey getting the wrong side of his man and beating the goalkeeper from the left-hand side of the box.

After that it was all-Montpelier. The visitors had what looked a stonewall penalty appeal waved away when Scott Ramsay seemed to bring down their centre-forward in the box and a less convincing penalty appeal declined when the ball was blasted against the arm of Ramsay.

Westfield: Bourne; Stapley, Ramsay, Gravett; McGurk, O’Prey; McMinigal, J. Ward, Adams; K. Ward (Payne (Stoyanov)), Carey (Shelton).

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