By Marcel Dudek
USW men’s football followed up a sensational comeback against UWE with a penalty shootout victory in the Varsity showdown at Lockleaze Sports Centre.
A brace from Alfie Marchant and Jack Fabry looked to be enough to get UWE over the line.
However, Laurent Ngunjoh, Kai Saurin and Kyle Capner had other ideas, all finding the net for USW to make it 3-3 – leading to a 4-3 USW win on penalties.
UWE started the game with the initiative and creating plenty of chances. They broke through in just the fifth minute when Fabry was found on the edge of the box and found the bottom corner.
Just under 20 minutes later Ngunjoh was brought down outside the box and Capner scored with a beautiful top-corner free-kick to equalise.
In the second half UWE counter-attacked when goalkeeper Cadeyrn Rendle played a great ball to Marchant, who did well to find space and score UWE’s second.
Marchant found space at the back post just eight minutes later after being picked out by Hafeez Dairo. He finished well, to make it 3-1 to the hosts.
USW, however, wouldn’t go down without a fight. Ngunjoh latched onto a great over the top ball, lobbing Rendle and getting one back in the 69th minute.
USW struck again in the dying embers with Saurin’s tame effort sneaking its way past Rendle for 3-3.
The encounter went straight to penalties to decide things at the end of normal time.
Capner, Saurin and Ngunjoh were all successful from 12 years for USW, while UWE missed two early efforts and could not recover.