BALINTORE ..................................................... 0
THURSO .......................................................... 2
THURSO completed a league double over Balintore on Saturday to keep alive their hopes of a top-four place in the North Caley League.
First-half goals from Michael Petrie and Marc MacGregor saw off a spirited home outfit which is still searching for its first victory of the season.
The Vikings had yet another new central defensive partnership with absentees seeing Stuart Sinclair making a rare appearance alongside Sean Stewart. They also gave an outing to Polish forward Lukas Geruzel whose appearance off the bench was enough to convince manager Stevie Reid he could prove a useful addition for the remainder of the campaign. Seaboard Park is normally firm but it was unable to cope with heavy rain in the lead-up to the game and the surface quickly cut up.
The visitors had passed up a couple of half-chances before Petrie grabbed his first goal of the season.
Graham MacNab, returning to fitness after a spell out injured, created the chance with a probe down the right flank. His pull-back dovetailed with Petrie's late run and he fired past keeper Eddie Shearer.
Thurso kept the upper hand and a foray by defender Martin Sutherland almost paid dividends when his lusty strike skimmed just over.
While the Vikings had the bulk of the play, their hard-working opponents harried and hounded to restrict the quality of supply to MacNab and Marc MacGregor. They were, however, undone on 36 minutes by a sprightly passage of play prompted by Chris Wann.
He exchanged passes with Ryan Begg before releasing MacNab whose centre allowed Marc MacGregor to side-foot the ball past Shearer.
At the interval, Reid reminded his troops of their previous game in the Jock Mackay Memorial Cup when they led 2-0 at the same stage at home to Balintore and ended up hanging on for a scratchy 3-2 win. There was no such fade-out this time though visiting keeper Asa Sinclair was called on to pull off a couple of decent saves to keep his goal intact.
The Vikings spurned chances to rack up a more convincing victory. Marc MacGregor fired narrowly wide before hitting a post and then ballooning a clear opening over.
Begg marred an otherwise impressive display when he was unable to beat Shearer when put in the clear. Garuzel, a 28-year-old Norscot worker, has not played for some time but showed some nice touches when he entered the fray for the closing half hour. He went close with a left-foot effort which was blocked though showed his ring-rustiness when he failed to connect with another chance with his less-favoured right foot. Manager Reid was happy enough with the win, which puts Thurso into joint fourth.
He said: "Balintore are stuffy side and made it difficult for us though we should have ran out easier winners. It was a decent overall performance and again we fielded a pretty young side."
Thurso have work to do if they are to secure a high enough placing to qualify for next season's North of Scotland Cup.
They have a tough run-in with their remaining three matches being away to Golspie Sutherland and Dingwall Thistle and at home to Muir of Ord Rovers.
Thurso: A. Sinclair, Sutherland, Harrold, S. Sinclair, Stewart, Petrie, G. MacGregor, Wann (Garuzel 60), Begg, M. MacGregor (M. Sinclair 70), MacNab (Miller 72).
Ref: Mr G. Dearie.
