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Maidstone United’s miserable start to the season shows no sign of coming to an end after they slumped to their sixth defeat with nine games played.
Despite being second best to Carshalton for parts of the game, The Stones came within a whisker of snatching a draw in stoppage time when substitute Danny Hockton saw his effort crash off the underside of the bar. However, as always seems to be the case when a side is struggling, Maidstone were caught out by a rapid Carshalton counter attack and the visitors immediately went up the other end and made certain of the victory with a coolly taken goal from Mbive Lokando.
It was The Stones who had the first opportunity of a quiet first half on three minutes when Jake Hobbs whipped in a tempting cross which Adrian Stone headed just over the bar. It then took a further twenty five minutes for there to be another notable moment when Carshalton’s Joel Ledgister latched onto a defence splitting pass and confidently finished past Andy Walker.
Four minutes later a fine move from Maidstone saw Tom Mills find Simon Glover who tricked his way to the touchline before lofting the ball into the middle where it was met by Stone who this time saw his header skim off the bar and fly over.
But The Stones were to have more luck on 42 minutes when Colin Richmond’s corner came out to Tom Parkinson who was outside the box and he lifted a delightful pass into Stone who brought the ball down and drilled in his first goal of the season.
The second half came to life just past the hour mark and on 64 minutes a deep cross picked out Chris Henry at the back post who found to James Duncan but Walker was alert to the danger and smothered the ball.
Following this, Maidstone attacked quickly and Richmond’s cross came to substitute Antonio Gonnella whose first time effort was comfortably saved by Craig Ross.
Then just a minute later Carshalton took the lead when Walker made a great save to deny Lokando but could not prevent Bryon Harrison lashing the follow up into the net.
Shortly afterwards, the visitors had a good chance to pull further ahead when The Stones lost their way in midfield and the ball was slipped into Harrison only for Walker to come off his line very quickly and he made a good save.
Walker was involved again three minutes from time when he made another fine save to deny Ledgister and then at the other end a good move from Maidstone ended with the ball dropping to Stone inside the area but he could not get enough power behind his shot and Ross in the Carshalton goal easily gathered his effort.
The flurry of late action then continued into stoppage time during which Hockton hit the underside of the bar and then Maidstone’s misery was compounded when Carshalton added a third right at the death.
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