Ladies go top of table with midweek win

From the first whistle, Ballymena went straight into attack mode and with good passing moves between Sarah Gage, Kerry Aiken, Sally Roddy and Aimee Logan.

Play continued with both teams pushing through at every opportunity but Ballymena were the first to take advantage with the better of the attacking play, winning a penalty corner. Mary Glass stepped up and fired a well-placed shot into the bottom right corner of the net for Ballymena to take the lead.

Sally Roddy was in great form, creating lots of spaces up front for a long ball which she picked up with ease and ran into the North Down circle winning another penalty corner. Mary Glass stepped up again and went for the straight shot. North Down had a defender on the line this time and she made a good save but unfortunately for the home side it rebounded off her stick onto the goalkeeper and back into the North Down net, for what was surely the most unusual goal either team had seem for a long time.

However, North Down didn't give up the fight and managed to find a gap through the solid Ballymena defence to claw one back with a fantastic reverse shot just before half time.

With good mid-field play from Dayna Alexander and Sarah Gage combining well with the forwards it wasn't long before Ballymena won another series penalty corners. This time Ballymena mixed it up with a slip to Sarah Gage who fired the ball across for Rebekah Reynolds to skilfully deflect the ball past the keeper putting Ballymena 3-1 ahead.

With Susanne Bell attacking well from centre-back and overloading the North Down defence they just couldn't contain the numerous attacks and Ballymena won another penalty corner. Susanne Bell's initial shot was saved and the rebound fell to Kerry Aiken who scored Ballymena's forth goal of the night with a 'tap-in'.

Player/coach Mary Glass was delighted with the teams' performance with 6 points from the last two league outings taking the Ballymena Ladies to the top of the table for the first time this season.

Ballymena: E Leslie E, M Glass, S Bell, K Allen, J Allen, B Kernohan (Capt), S Gage, R Reynolds, D Alexander, S Roddy, A Logan, K Aiken, N Harkness.