Exeter City Ladies 2 Southampton Saints 1

Grecians record home victory against the Saints

Exeter City Ladies recorded a fine 2-1 home win over Southampton Saints – a team which had defeated them 4-2 three weeks previously in Hampshire.

The Grecians were under the guidance of Jack Gill in the absence of manager Gareth Young – and the game got off at a frantic pace with all three goals coming inside the opening seven minutes.

Exeter scored first from a cross by Lola Garcia Sanchez, who showed skill to beat her defender and put in a ball for the division’s top scorer Tash Knapman to head home.

However the lead wasn’t held for long – just a minute later Southampton scored from a corner which wasn’t dealt with by the Exeter defence.

Exeter retook the lead when a corner from Knapman was headed in powerfully by Vicky Barter.

The goals then dried up, but that was due to some outstanding goalkeeping from the visiting keeper who on numerous occasions thwarted the Exeter attack with some fantastic saves.

Southampton created very little and only a great save by Exeter goalkeeper Carley Barber with ten minutes to spare, diving to her right and tipping a shot onto the post, stopped them from equalising.

Exeter held on for a well-deserved win to move to within three points of the top two teams in the league, ahead of next weekend’s home tie against Marine Academy Plymouth in the quarter-final of the Devon County Cup.