East Kilbride Thistle boss Aaron Connolly admits the pain of their penalty shootout defeat to Larkhall Thistle still hurts, a few days on from their valiant defeat in the Junior Cup.
Playing a side two divisions above them in the West of Scotland League, the Jags took the lead through Ryan Anderson at Gasworks Park before Larkhall went 2-1 up in the second half
But Connolly’s side were dominant after the break and when Larkhall went down to nine men in the last 10 minutes, EK equalised in stoppage time through Ryan Menzies to force penalties.
In the shootout Adam Edgar, Sean Fitzpatrick, Joe McPake and Ryan Menzies all netted for EK. However, Reagan Cusack and Matthew Mullin missed from the spot, as Thistle lost on sudden death 5-4 to exit at the second round stage.
Gutted gaffer Connolly sighed: “We are bitterly disappointed to lose on penalties.
“It becomes a bit of a lottery when you go into a shootout.
“But I thought for most of the game we were excellent. We competed very well and I was still so disappointed a few days on that we didn’t convert a few more of our chances.
“We hit the post, hit the bar and their keeper made a couple of good saves. We really turned the screw late on and we were just unfortunate not to get over the line within 90 minutes.
“We took the lead and we were excellent for the first 35 minutes, really on top of the game, but we just didn’t hold on to the lead long enough.
“The early part of the second half was probably the best Larkhall had. They got a goal just before half-time to go into a 2-1 lead, but from then on we were knocking down the door trying to level the game.
“They go down to nine men in the final 10 minutes when we were dominating the game anyway. I really expected us to go and get the equaliser and we did that with almost the last kick of the ball.
“Even after that, we hit the bar and forced the goalie into a big save, so I felt we gave absolutely everything to win the game in 90 minutes, but we were just unfortunate.”
Thistle’s attention returns to Fourth Division duty on Saturday when they host Eglinton and Connolly says his side should take a lot of confidence from last weekend, but he wants to see more consistency from his players.
He added: “We’ve shown what we are capable of. We don’t do it as consistently as we would like and that is the marker we have set now, to try and maintain that performance level.
“If we do that, we can compete with the better sides in the league and above us.”
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