Jacobs Cracker Takes The Biscuit For Maldon
A sublime freekick from Amy Jacobs was enough to see Maldon & Tiptree past a resilient Frontiers side.
Following back-to-back wins against Braintree Athletic last week, Jody Buckley’s side were looking to complete a league double over Frontiers following another narrow 1-0 win at the start of the season.
The visitors were arguably the quicker of the two sides out of the blocks although they couldn’t fashion much in the way of a clear cut opening.
Somewhat against the run of play, Maldon took a third minute lead through Stef Paci. The Jammers forced the turnover high in the Frontiers half through Amy Yeldham and Libby Keeler. Yeldham’s ball across the face of goal was met by Paci on the edge of the box and her finish was ice cold to place the ball into the corner.
Maldon struggled to take full advantage of that early lead. Windy conditions and a failure to keep control of the ball contributed to a scrappy game.
Yeldham saw a great opportunity fade just past the post having rolled her defender from Brooke Wright’s through ball.
Lauren Yates was nearly out through for the visitors shortly after, but her first touch let her down and the chance was gone.
Frontiers again went close before the break when Kalle Westgarth’s header was cleared off the line from a corner. Maldon managed to break away from that with Taylah Bland sending Yeldham in on goal, but she sliced wide.
A scrappy first half drew to a close as The Jammers entered the break with a slender one goal advantage.
Straight from kick-off for the second 45, the visitors should’ve been level. A ball across the Maldon box found Emma Case. She hammered the ball towards goal only to be denied by a fine stop from Freya Faulkner.
Maldon were riding their luck as chances for Frontiers continued to come.
And then with ten minutes gone, Jacobs’ sublime freekick from all of 35 yards looped over Sarah Walter and gave Maldon breathing room.
Still Frontiers wouldn’t go away. Four minutes later, they had the ball in the net, only for their celebrations to be cut short by the offside flag.
The game settled with chances proving harder to come by for both sides. Westgarth halved the deficit late on with a long range strike that evaded the dive of Faulkner to set up a tense final ten minutes.
Ellie Jones could’ve made sure of the win late on, but Brody Brownlie’s cross was just ahead of the onrushing Maldon forward as they hung on for a third win in a row.
