Boreham Wood’s Under 19s progressed through to the Champion of Champions final, with a penalty shootout victory over Sutton United. 

A mistake from the Sutton United goalkeeper allowed the Wood an early lead, when Tarell Annakie spilled Sorba Thomas’ cross into his own net.

Alex Radu helped to retain the lead shortly after, when he tracked back and made a sliding intervention, as their forward prepared to pull the trigger from close-range.

However, the visitors did equaliser in the first half, when a long-range effort from Lamar McRend fizzled past Fred Burbidge.

Sach glanced an early second half header past the post, before Burbidge pulled off a superb one-handed reaction save, to deny Sutton a volleyed goal.

The away side were able to make their pressure pay and took the lead, when Kyle Henry dragged a strike past Burbidge from close-range.

Cameron Mawer’s side showed excellent character, to level the affair once again. Iliman Ndiaye slipped Sach through into the area and he took a touch before slotting a composed strike past Annakie.

The two teams would need penalties to separate them and Sach stepped up to confidently fire the first past Annakie, before Burbidge saved Max Felloni’s strike.

Both Radu and Judah Chapman missed the second set of penalties, but Jack Gibbs and McRend tucked the third away.

Substitute Cheyce Grant had been brought on with little time remaining, but left his mark on the match when he dispatched a third penalty for the hosts.

Burbidge then stood strong and kept out Craig McGee’s final spot-kick, to secure the win and a place in the Champion of Champions final.

On the win, Mawer commented: “I am really pleased. It is a competition that we won last year, so to have a chance to retain it is massive.

“There are 140 teams in the competition, so to make it into the last two, shows just how good they have been.

“I think that they deserve it, because they went to Chester in the semi-final of the National Cup and didn’t really do themselves justice. So, I am really, really proud of how they have bounced back from that.

“This is a Sutton side who have gone and literally battered everything that has moved. They won both their reserve league and their league and they won their preliminary round in this competition 6-1 and their quarter final 4-0.

“They have got a few of our old boys as well in their ranks and they were obviously determined to win, but I thought that the boys showed a lot of character having gone behind.

“I think that says a lot about them and they are all pushing now to be a part of the first team in the summer.”

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