Dandy Town Hornets, the defending Dudley Eve Trophy champions, defeated North Village Rams 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out at Goose Gosling Field last night.

Hornets appeared to be cruising at 2-0 with just ten minutes remaining thanks to goals from Ayshaun Smith in the 23rd minute and a Damon Ming free-kick in the 52nd.

Village pulled a goal back on 80 minutes when Keishen Bean scrambled the ball home to set up a thrilling finale to a thoroughly absorbing encounter.

With just seconds of normal time remaining, Jonathan Briers, the Village substitute, volleyed home from close range after excellent work down the right wing from Tyrell Burgess, the Rams defender, to send the game into extra-time.

With the momentum seeming to have swung in Village’s favour, Bean then grabbed his second in the 96th with a superb strike from the edge of the box that hit the stanchion en route to goal.

Village were then reduced to ten men in the second half of extra time when Tarreko Wilson was sent off for his second yellow card.

Hornets poured men forward in pursuit of a leveller to send the game into a penalty shoot-out and got their reward when Azende Furbert rose the highest to head past Troy Hall, the Village goalkeeper, in the final minute of extra time.

In the ensuing shoot-out, Bean missed the first penalty to put Village on the back-foot with Kevin Hurdle converting for Hornets.

With Pierre Smith scoring Village’s second and Brandon Minors having his effort saved by Hall, the scores were level when Jerome Bailey stepped up for Village’s third penalty.

However, the young defender had his penalty saved by Ajai Daniels to hand Town the advantage, with Ming calmly slotting his effort home to put Hornets in the driving seat at 2-1.

The remaining penalties were all converted, Tyrell Burgess and Dimitre Daniels for Village, and Fabian Frankson and Angelo Simmons for Hornets, to ensure Jomar Wilkinson’s side a passage through to the final, where they will meet Somerset Trojans.

Hornets largely dominated yesterday’s game up until the 80th minute when Bean struck to turn the game on its head. A loss would have been hard to take for Town who have struggled in the league this term.