Two wins for U9s

BANBRIDGE Town U9s continued their development league games on Saturday and came away with yet another two victories over Loughgall and Portadown.

In their first game they met Loughgall. Banbridge started the game slowly and found themselves two down in the opening minutes with two strikes that gave Kyle Bradford no chance in the Banbridge goal.

Town soon turned the game around when the impressive Josh Kerr hit a superb hat trick to put the juniors 3-2 ahead,this lead turned into five with two more strikes from defender Lee Whitten then midfielder Patrick McGrath adding to his goals tally.

To their credit Loughgall kept going and got their rewards with another two goals to make it 5-4 in an exciting finish but Banbridge finished strongly when man of the match Josh Kerr added another two goals with the second a delightful solo goal to end the match 7-4.

Banbridge then took on a strong Portadown team in their second game and got the perfect start when Ryan Meara who was putting in a good shift on the left wing cut in and drilled an effort high into the net, Josh Kerr quickly added number two when he cooly sidefooted the ball into the net following a neat move involving Jack Murray and Ryan Meara.

Town now were constantly on the attack and got number two when a corner was cleared only for the ball to drop to Patrick McGrath who volleyed the ball high into the top corner.

With Banbridge constantly attacking this left big gaps at the back and Portadown were able to pull two goals back to set up another tense finish.Alex Innocenzi who was having a solid game in center of midfield scored number four with 10 minutes remaining,after this Portadown finished the game strongly but the defence of Calum Kermath and Lee Whitten stood firm along with some excellant goalkeeping by Toby Jones to finish the game 4-2.

Team: Kyle Bradford, Lee Whitten, Calum Kermath, Ryan Meara, Josh Kerr, Patrick McGrath, Jack Murray, Alex Innocenzi