BILLERICAY Town Ladies edged a nine-goal thriller to progress into the last four of the Essex County Cup.

Town beat Writtle 5-4 at New Lodge on Sunday, with Paris Smith netting the winner to round off a topsy-turvy encounter.

Both teams were evenly matched early on, but Billericay’s breakthrough came in the 14th minute.

A corner was whipped into the visitors box and, after Writtle failed to clear, the loose ball was met by Hayley Piggot who drove the ball low into the far corner of the net.

Billericay’s second came just after the half-hour mark, and once again it was from a corner. The ball was played in and was put away by Billericay’s other centre half, Kirsty Knight.

Writtle continued to battle on the heavy pitch and got back into the game three minutes later. Good play down the wing ended with a fine finish meaning the scores were 2-1 at the interval.

Billericay started the second period on top and it only took them two minutes to restore their two goal advantage.

A good ball through to Fran Murphy saw her burst through on goal and she finished well. With Billericay on top, the visitors keeper pulled off two fantastic saves to deny Smith but in the blink of an eye the visitors had got their second of the afternoon, and the third soon followed.

From the restart Billericay won a corner, with Nicole Farmer sending in a teasing delivery that Lindsey Morgan fired home to make it 4-3.

This set up a frantic 10 minutes with Writtle on the attack from the restart. And they did force another leveller, heading into the final five minutes.

Lauren Knight came so close to the decisive goal when she headed Smith’s cross onto the post, and the winner came on the counter-attack.

It was roles reversed, as Knight turned provider and Smith beat the covering defender to slot the ball under the away keeper to make it 5-4.

Billericay: Strauss, Hopwood, Piggott, K Knight, Appleton, Whitehead, Barker, Morgan, Murphy (L Knight), Smith, Famer