Whitley Warriors 6 Sheffield ENL Scimitars 5

Mar 31 2008 The Journal

WHITLEY Warriors made it six wins out of six in the play-offs with a victory over outgoing champions Sheffield at Hillheads last night.

They now head in to the English National League Championship final against Peterborough Islanders at Coventry on the back of an eight-game winning run.

Nathan Salem opened the Whitley scoring on seven minutes, with Callum Watson smashing home a second at 16.51. Although the Scimitars opened their account soon after, the home side were quick to respond with a goal from Karl Culley on his last competitive appearance at Hillheads.

Peter Zajac was the next Whitley scorer on 30 minutes after racing down the left wing but Sheffield then reminded the home crowd why they were ENL champions and netted twice in 30 seconds.

However, Culley raced away for his second of the night at 36.53 to put the home side 5-3 ahead by the second interval. In a game that was full of intensity for the whole 60 minutes despite the outcome not being crucial to either side, Nathan Salem put the Warriors further ahead with 10 minutes remaining.

Sheffield to their credit kept going to the end and although they had no bearing on the result they hit two late goals.

But in the end they were unable to threaten the Warriors’ 100% record.

WHITLEY WARRIORS: Culley and Salem 2+0, P Zajac 1+1, Watson 1+0, Howey 0+2, S Zajac, D Good, Hendry, Tindale and Mole 0+1.