Bridlington Town surge to 3-1 victory at Ashington
Bridlington Town produced a relentless, high-energy display to claim a thoroughly deserved 3-1 victory over Ashington at Woodhorn Lane.
Town set an energetic tone from the opening whistle, Charlie Birdsall causing early problems for the host backline, breaking clear in the eighth minute, drawing a sharp save down to the goalkeeper's right. Bridlington continued to threaten and pressed the Ashington defence constantly, and in the 20th minute, their pressure paid off.
A short corner played to Ahmed Salam, who beat his man before pinging a superb left-footed cross to the back-post for Tom Allan to power home a header.
Ashington grew into the contest as the half wore on, testing Alex Baird before finding an equaliser in the 42nd minute. A brilliant long-range strike curled cleanly into the far top corner to send the sides into the break level.
Bridlington kept the ball and moved it around well throughout the second half, with Joe Batty causing lots of problems down the right hand side for the Seasiders, with loanee Coist Walker working hard down the left wing.
On 55 minutes, the management made a decisive triple substitution and reworked the formation – introducing Destiny Nnenanya, Casey Stewart, and Billy Marshall for Joe Pratley, Luca Bolino, and Kyle Fanning – which swung the game completely in the visitors' favour.
The turning point came in the 65th minute. A catastrophic miskick from the Ashington keeper flew to Salam who gifted possession straight to Destiny, who pounced instantly to rifle a strike into the top of the net and restore Brid's lead.
Bridlington sealed the points in the 78th minute through a sweeping team move.
Toby Marriott, fresh off the bench, turned his marker brilliantly before slipping Destiny through the middle, who kept his cool, cutting the ball back across for Ben Tweed to calmly slot home to make it 3-1.
Marriott almost added a fourth immediately after, dragging a shot inches wide via a deflection, while Destiny was denied a penalty in the 85th minute after being shoved in the back while shooting.
Despite Destiny pulling up injured late on, where he was replaced by Riley Cooper, Brid saw out the closing minutes comfortably to take all three points ahead of this coming Saturday's FA Trophy fixture at home against Congleton Town.