Last-gasp Whitfield stuns sad Stevenage
MANY managers would have blamed the referee if their side were denied victory by a goal after the allotted injurytime but Darren Sarll insists the responsibility for Yeovil’s dramatic equaliser lies squarely at the feet of his players.
Two brilliant strikes from winger Ben Kennedy had the home side on course for three points until Ben Whitfield struck with 95 minutes on the clock.
Yeovil – who led through an early second-half goal from Ryan Hedges – looked down and out until Whitfield’s angled volley was deflected past Stevenage keeper Jamie Jones.
But Boro manager Sarll chose not to dwell on Gavin Ward’s timing issue, saying: “I’m disappointed with our defending for their equalising goal. We didn’t defend properly from a throwin and we got punished,
“You can talk about the amount of added time put up on the board and the amount of added time actually played, but we’ve got to look at how we defended and it wasn’t good enough.
“I’ve got more of an issue with Matt Godden’s goal in the first half which was wrongly ruled out for offside.
“I’ve had a look at it on the video and he was definitely onside, so the goal should have been allowed.
“Ben Kennedy scored two great goals and it’s a shame for Ben that his goals haven’t won us the game.”
Yeovil extend their unbeaten run to five league games and boss Darren Way said: “Our players never give up, that’s the moral of the story. We’ve got a great set of players and they got their reward for keeping going to the very end.
“Ben Whitfield was unlucky not to be in the team from the start but made a great impact when he went on and kept his composure at the end.
“We’re having to learn to cope with the pressure of pushing to get into the playoffs and it’s a different pressure, but we’ve moved up the table again with that point.” Hedges broke the deadlock in the second period when he raced clear before beating Jones with a powerful left-footed shot from close-range.
The first of Kennedy’s fine strikes came after he cut in from the left wing and drilled a low shot into the bottom corner with his left foot.
And the second was even better as he finished off a counter-attack with a dipping, curling shot from the edge of the area but the points were shared when Whitfield struck with virtually the last kick.