Heartache for WU19s in cup final

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Dani Bowman's Wu19s squad narrowly miss out on silverware.

Heather Miller

2025-04-29T22:00+01:00

The under-19s were beaten by Lewes. 📸 Paul Hazlewood.

Our women's under-19s lost in the Sussex Women's Challenge Cup final to Lewes on penalties on Tuesday night.

Having played out a goalless 90 minutes, Albion missed two of their spot-kicks in the shootout, while Lewes scored all of theirs, to lose 4-2 on the night.

The first real sight of goal came from Albion's Elliana Martin after some confident play down the right, but her shot was safely gathered by Lewes keeper Emily Moore.

The Albion team that took on Lewes. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

That chance set the tone, with Martin, Olivia Johnson and Clarabella Hall all finding pockets of space and asking questions of the Lewes defence.

At the other end, Olivia Carpenter - an Albion player, but turning out for Lewes on dual registration - thought she’d opened the scoring on the half-hour mark, but the offside flag cut celebrations short.

The close call sparked Lewes into life with Paula Howells coming closest to breaking the deadlock with a clever chip over Lily Murray, only for Jess Pegram to produce a stunning goal line clearance.

Jess Pegram pulled off a terrific goalline clearance to deny Lewes. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

Katie Gilligan reacted with a strike against the crossbar for Lewes from the edge of the box and Kayla Ginger was placed to head in the rebound, but it agonisingly rattled off the crossbar once more.

With 90 minutes of normal time unable to separate the teams, it went to penalties. Olivia Johnson and May Balmer scored from 12 yards for Albion, but misses from Hall and Pegram put Lewes in the driving seat.

Howells, Carpenter, Ginger and Maddie Brant all converted to ensure that the Rooks came away as winners.