Brewer brace not enough for Hassocks to end Rangers unbeaten season so far
Hassocks were unable to inflict a first Southern Combination League Under 18s Central Division defeat of the season on local rivals St Francis Rangers, who moved a step closer to the title with a 3-2 win at the Beacon.
There has been little between Rangers and the division’s third Mid Sussex club, Burgess Hill Town, at the top of the table throughout the campaign with both making it all the way to April without tasting defeat.
That was until they met at Colwell Road a fortnight ago, where Rangers won 2-1 to seize the initiative in the championship race.
Burgess Hill subsequently need Rangers to drop points in their remaining fixtures and they would have been hoping the Robins could do them a favour in this third meeting of the campaign between the sides.
The second of those came in the Sussex Bluefin Dennis Probee Youth Cup and saw Hassocks inflict a rare setback on St Francis.
Nothing could separate the teams after 90 minutes with the Robins going onto eliminate their neighbours from the competition on penalties.
Hassocks went all the way to the semi finals of the county competition and they did likewise in the League Cup too.
Their adventure in that ended in a 6-3 defeat away at Newhaven just 72 hours before Rangers arrived at the Beacon. The Robins could therefore have been forgiven if they were suffering from something of a hangover.
But there was no sign of that Hassocks set about trying to upset Rangers, whilst at the same time looking to strengthen their own hopes of finishing third behind Hill and St Francis.
Hassocks resisted the temptation to make a significant number of changes following Thursday night’s exertions at the Trafalgar Ground.
Sam Dean and Ben Foster came into the starting XI in place of Oliver Goswamy and Max Ward. Other than that, the XI remained the same as for the Newhaven game.
Both the Hassocks goals were scored by Alex Brewer, whose brace means that he is now scoring at an average better than a goal a game.
21 from 20 appearances leaves him second in the race for the North Division golden boot behind Jimmy Tasker of Saltdean United. Brewer has two matches left to try and overhaul the Tigers forward.
Ricardo Silva claimed a brace of his own for Rangers with Joshua Singh Nandhra completing the scoring for the visitors.
Hassocks play their final two fixtures in the next seven days. On Wednesday night, they travel to Hill Park to take on Saltdean United in a 7:30pm kick off.
Then next Sunday, Shoreham are the visitors to the Beacon. With the Musselmen sitting third in the table two points ahead of Hassocks, that has the look of pivotal game in the battle to be the best of the rest after Rangers and Burgess Hill.
Hassocks: Jack Thomas, George Gladding, Ed Tobias, Ben Foster, Alex Wintle, Sam Fernley, Sam Dean, Jack Duckett, Alex Brewer, Oliver Parker-Williams, Will Varley.
Subs: Matt Mongardini, Ryan Goss (used).
