Charlton suffer defeat on the road in Women’s Championship after 2-1 loss at Lewes

By Mitul Samji

Paula Howells’ second-half stunner helped Lewes to a 2-1 win against Charlton, their first league victory of the season.

Ellie Hack’s towering header gave Lewes the lead before Kiera Skeels equalised in the first half.

But Howells’ wonder strike secured the victory for Lewes after the break.

The first chance of the game came in the fourth minute when Elisha N’Dow played a wild back pass to Charlton goalkeeper Sian Rogers.

She failed to clear the danger and parried the ball away for a corner.

And from the resulting set-piece, Hack met Natalie Johnson’s delivery with a thumping header into the top left corner.

The Addicks tried their luck from outside the box as Bethan Roe struck a curling effort that went over the bar.

Moments later, Karen Hills’ side equalised after Skeels notched a powerful header from Emily Simpkins’ corner to bring Charlton back into the game.

In the 30th minute, Sophie Whitehouse produced a vital save to deny Simpkins from close-range and keep Lewes in the game.

Charlton almost took the lead just before the end of the first half.

The ball fell to Freda Ayisi, whose deflected strike forced Whitehouse to produce another astounding save.

Scott Booth’s side started the second half strongly, eventually taking the lead through Howells.

The 25-year-old midfielder scored a screamer from inside the box that sailed past goalkeeper Rogers on its way to the top corner.

Just before the hour mark, Whitehouse reacted brilliantly to tip N’Dow’s header over the bar.

The home side continued to defend superbly at the edge of the box as time ticked down, and that was enough to secure the three points.

Charlton manager Karen Hills said: “Disappointed today, but fair play to Lewes. We gifted them the two goals in terms of our organisation. A back pass from us in the opening minutes and a mistake led to a corner. Fair play to the corner and we didn’t deal with it. 

“Thankfully, we got ourselves back in the game. And then in the second half, we got hit by another goal which put us on the back foot a little bit. At the end of the day, it’s one of those games we’ve got to learn from. 

“We had a lot of set pieces and obviously scored from one. I think we could have done a little bit more and had a few wide free-kicks too and we could have tested the keeper a bit more. I just thought before the end of the first half, Sophie Whitehouse pulled off an absolutely unbelievable save to keep her side level in the game. We just got to be better at set pieces. 

“The challenge was they hit the ball over the top and had runners in behind that would run the channel. We knew that it was going to be the case. We knew that their set pieces are going to be dangerous and needed to make sure we were marking them. I thought they surrounded us with a lot around the ball and stopped Angela from playing. Unfortunately, we didn’t do it back to them.

“Our team talk at halftime is all about that belief, concentration and the quality that we knew we had to come back into the game. In the second half, we could go and be successful. We’ve got a lot of young players that have learnt a lot from this game in key moments and I’m pretty sure that it won’t happen again.” 

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PHOTO: KEITH GILLARD