East Kilbride 5 Vale of Leithen 1

For the second week running against one of the title favourites Vale were still in the game until the last 13 minutes when they lost three goals.
Prior to kick off Vale were hit with some bad luck when first choice goalkeeper Ross Gilpin had to be replaced by Kiernan Beveridge due to a sickness bug.
Kiernan went to put in a tremendous afternoon with many great saves to keep Vale in the game.
As expected Kilby started with the majority of the pressure with Vale operating a more defensive system which left a front two of Stewart and Smith. Although Kilby had the pressure the speed and running of Stewart was always a threat to them.
Kilby took the lead in the 13 min when a Anderson pass was control by Woods and slotted home.
However, they led only for one minute when Stewart was chasing a through ball and the Kilby goalkeeper and defender clashed allowing Stewart to pass the ball into an open goal.
Kilby took the lead again in the 25 min when Vale allowed Longworth time on the left to float a ball into the box where Woods headed past Beveridge.
Vale were under pressure for the rest of the half but managed to keep Kilby at bay.
HT 2-1

Vale did some positional changes at half time appeared to be defending well under constant pressure. Stewart was still killing the Kilby defence problems with his running and also in the air.
With some good goalkeeping from Beveridge and some poor finishing by Kilby, Vale were still in the game and were starting to make the odd chance in search of the equaliser.
However, as was the case last Saturday Vale were hit with two goals in two minutes. First in the 77 min a poor clearance was intercepted and Woods passed to McNeil who hammered home from 25 yards. A minute later it was 4-1 when Winter breaks clear and slips the ball to McNeil for his second goal.
Even at 4-1 with McLeod on Vale still a couple of chances to reduce the lead, but as is usually the case when you’re chasing a game Kilby broke up the park in 86 min and a Malcolm shot came back of the post for Winter to slot home.
FT 5-1

The team competed well throughout and its not every week they are going to meet teams of the same calibre of Kilby, a team looking like the title might be theirs for the taking this season.