Morecambe Ladies see off Leeds

Megan Doherty looked lively up front early on when her header from the first corner of the game just went wide of the post.

With four minutes on the clock, Doherty raced onto Beth Fisher’s defence-splitting pass to fire the ball past Stacey Haytack in the Leeds goal.

Three minutes later Doherty turned provider – she played a one-two with Becky Whittingham, whose shot beat Haytack despite the keeper getting a hand to it to make it 2-0.

With five minutes to go before the interval Emma Kay raced away down the right, Laura Callis offered support and due to her tenacity to fight for the ball she set up Whittingham to score with an almost identical shot to her last goal.

Dannii Cross then made a nuisance of herself early in the second half and got bundled over outside the box.

Up stepped Whittingham to curl the direct free-kick into the top corner of the net to complete a second hat-trick in as many weeks.

Morecambe were then awarded a penalty following a handball from a Whittingham corner, Fisher stepping up to complete the scoring as the Ladies booked their place in the first round proper.