The Harriers fielded a mixture of first team and youth for the game with Jas Singh reclaiming his place between the sticks and hoping to exorcise his memories of last Mondays nightmare. Also starting was Aaron Farrell who failed to make the squad for the weekend draw at Oxford Utd.
City played a strong side that didn't look too different to the one we beat last Monday. Three former Reds started the game, Graham Ward, Rob Davies and Wayne Daniel with Mark Clyde and triallist Marco Addagio on the bench.It took City just four minutes to take the lead when Alfie Carter broke through the Harriers defence, leave Singh stranded and then side footed the ball into the back of the net.
The minor setback seemed to unsettle us for a while and City went in search of a second goal. It came soon after our first real chance of the game that Tom Sharpe put over the bar.
From that near miss City broke and advanced on our goal but some good defending managed to put the ball out for a corner. The corner ball came in and less good defending saw the ball run free for Rob Elvins to put the ball into the net for their second goal. That semed to wake us up a bit and Aaron Farrell went close but Jake Meredith saved his shot well.
For the remainder of the half it was all Harriers but, even with Knights buzzing in midfield, we couldn't get the all important goal and the first half came to a close with the home side well in command.
The team must have been the victim of another ear Burrning because for the second period they came out with all guns firing. Knights and Farrell both forced the keeper into good saves and then Chris McPhee should have done better with a close range chance that he somehow put over the bar.
Just after Addagio came on for City in place of Rob Elvins we managed to start our great comeback. Some neat build up play saw the ball played into the path of Knights who set himself up for a quality strike to bring the deficit down to just the one goal. Six minutes later and we had drawn level.
With the first goal of his career Lee Baker bought the ball from his usual defensive position and managed to evade the attentions of half the City team to take the ball into the area and then fire past the City keeper into the net. A remarkable solo effort from the youngster and even more so when he went and scored again just minutes later.
Yet again he worked his way from the back of the field and, with everyone expecting a repeat of his earlier goal, he confounded them all by firing home from twenty five yards out to complete a remarkable comeback and give us an astounding victory against a shell shocked City.
We shut up shop then but in the dying stages of the game City did try to extend the game for a further thirty minutes with a long range effort from Louis Bridges and then in the last seconds Addagio sent in a shot that Singh just about managed to get down to and smother.
We can now look forward to meeting the winners of the Halesowen and Stourbridge game, who meet next Tuesday, in the final.
Worcester:
Meredith, Ward (Khan), K Spencer, Fitzpatrick, Daniel, Kemp (Wilding), Davies, Walker, Elvins (Addagio), Carter, Bridges.
Subs:
Dinsmore, Clyde.
Harriers:
Singh, Jones, Baker, Sharpe, Hayward, Hull, McPhee, Hadley, Matthews, Knights, Farrell.
Subs:
Coleman, Finnigan, Seekings, Crumpton.
Referee: J Law
Att: 290
