UPOTTERY 2

LYME REGIS 2

LYME Regis claimed a valuable point on the road at Upottery thanks to goals from Cody Bowditch and Ben Vine in the Macron Devon & Exeter Premier Division.

Lyme were missing Ben Turner, Fred Parsons, Callum Larcombe and Sam Jones for the match, leading manager Gerard Hitchcock to be happy with a point.

Lyme got off to a great start, and went 1-0 up after 10 minutes.

Bowditch nipped in at the back post to nod in a ball at a tight angle that both the Upottery goalkeeper and the defence thought was going out.

Kieran White then pulled his hamstring and had to be replaced by Mark Bailey after 15 minutes.

After 30 minutes, Upottery were level.

Lyme tried to clear a ball, which fell to an Upottery attacker on the edge of the box, but as he tried to cross it in Sam Burke ran straight into it and accidentally fired into his own net.

Both teams had chances in the second half, before the home side took advantage during a 10-minute spell of dominance over the Seasiders.

The ball came back into the Lyme box, which was saved but parried into the path of an Upottery forward, who fired in managing to avoid two of his own players on the line.

However, the visitors got a late equaliser with 75 minutes on the clock.

Lyme broke away, with Burke laying it into Vine, who played a one-two

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with Bowditch before Vine slotted in.

The game almost saw even further late drama, with Lyme having a big penalty claim late on.

At this point the pitch was getting heavy, with the pattern of play revolving around Upottery pressure, with Lyme countering to make for an intriguing contest.

With two minutes to go, Bowditch got poleaxed in the penalty area following a couple of crosses, before the referee looked at his watch before waving play on.

Hitchcock said: “It was a decent enough result really because they are not a bad side.

“The pitch got very heavy come the end of it, because we had two or three really heavy showers.

“I was happy with a point to be perfectly honest. They are a pretty good side, they are only just below us.”

Lyme: Meech, Cleal (Rowe 80), Fowler, Knight, Wellman, Burke, Fellingham, White (Bailey 15), Vine, Bearpark (Holmes 70), Bowditch.