A comfortable win for Sittingbourne in the Good Friday sunshine kept the Brickies on course for the play-offs.
First half goals from Mitch May’s flick and from Danny Parish’s curler round the keeper saw the home side in front at the break and when Harry Hope drilled home a third in the first minute of the second half, the game was over.
It could and should have been more as May, Chris Regis, Parish, and Chris Harris all had chances to extend the lead, but three was more than enough in the end. The visitors were disappointing and when Zak Willett missed their only chance of the game, their miserable trip to Swale was summed up perfectly.
Horndean arrived at Woodstock after having beaten Ramsgate a few weeks earlier failed to reproduce that sort of form as the Brickies dominated from start to finish.
May flicked the home side in front with his 18th goal of the campaign as he did well to get in front of his man as the ball was played forward. Debutant Chris Regis hammered a skimming drive a yard wide from the edge of the box before Parish rampaged into the box only to be denied by a combination of keeper and defender.
Parish was to make it two on 25 minutes when he was released down the inside left channel and coolly curled the ball round and beyond keeper Cameron Scott for his sixth Brickies goal and his sixteenth overall. The home side could have been further in front at the break as Parish forced a defender into putting into his own net, but the assistant’s flag had been raised.
As the second half started, the game ended as a contest as Hope burst down the right and from the acutest angle hit a rasping drive which keeper Scott will have been disappointed not to have kept out.
Sub Chris Harris then raced through after Hope was flattened off the ball but could not convert as he slid the ball wide of the post. Hope was then denied by the Scott’s right boot as the home side continued to press and totally dominate proceedings.
The visitors missed a golden opportunity at the death to pull one back, but Zak Willett was denied by keeper Bobby Mason after a two on one break and being played through point blank in front of goal by Dan Sibley.
SITTINGBOURNE – Mason, Ayman, Tyrie, Uyi (Black), Graham, Ilic, Piorkowski, Hope, Regis, Parish (Maxwell), May (Harris)
Sub – Snell
HORNDEAN – Scott, Taw, Miller, Rubb, Kellett-Smith, Field, Jackson (Sibley), Callaghan (Dyer), Duffin, Scutt, Willett
Subs – O’Brien, Pile, Blankson
REFEREE – Mr Joss
Images courtesy of Paul Golding