Notts County Ladies U16 beat Ilkeston on return to league action

The home side started well and were playing in the visitors half.

On 15 minutes wide player Kelsea Marriott received the ball on the edge of the box and set up striker Jade Henderson with a neat square ball for Jade to thump the ball into the bottom left corner 1-0.

County doubled their lead 10 minutes later when Polly Collier on the opposite flank switched the play with a terrific pass for Jade to run onto and skip past defenders finishing off with a cool strike for 2-0.

The team that relish a challenge were given a few for the second period and they didn’t disappoint.

Ilkeston had a bit of bad luck as a clearance close to goal was miss kicked and spun back over the goal line 3-0.

County got a fourth when a Kelsea corner was set back for Leia Ward on the edge of the box to smash the ball into the top corner 4-0.

A throw in deep in County’s half from Polly into Sarah Duffield who ran the ball forward and twisted and turned herself into the box to set up Ellie Betteridge to pass the ball into the net 5-0.

In the dying minutes Ilkeston got a consolation goal when County failed to deal with a corner and the shot went through a number of bodies to un-sight the keeper 5-1. A pleasing performance from Notts County as they played with creativity and took on the challenges thrown at them.

Player of the match again could have gone to a number of players today as Emily George had a good solid performance in defence as did Hannah Askew and Amy Townsend who always looked to play the ball out of defence with good composure on the ball.

Both Polly Collier and Kelsea Marriott had good games on the flanks but the player of the match was awarded to Sarah Duffield who worked hard and was creative on the ball to set up attacks and goal scoring chances.

Goals: Jade Henderson 2, Ellie Betteridge 1, Leia Ward 1, OG 1.