A HAT-TRICK from striker Owen Pritchard helped Ivybridge Town to a 5-1 away win over Liskeard Athletic in a pre-season friendly at Lux Park on Friday evening (July 19).

Pritchard opened the scoring with an angled shot from wide on the left in the 21st minute to give Ivybridge a 1-0 interval lead.

Liskeard hit back in the second half to equalise with a shot from Dan Jennings in the 53rd minute.

But Ivybridge finished strongly with four more goals in the final half-hour. Ollie Aplin continued his run of scoring in each of the club’s four friendlies to date when he restored the lead after fine work by Pritchard in the 62nd minute.

Then Aplin returned the favour by creating an opening for Pritchard to score three minutes later.

Fletcher Williams added a fourth with a shot in the 79th minute while Pritchard completed his hat-trick nine minutes from the end.

Ivybridge round off their pre-season friendlies with a visit to Bodmin on Tuesday (July 23).

The club will then look forward to the new challenge of playing Western League football following their promotion from the South West Peninsula League as East Division champions last season.

Their opening fixture in the new competition will be on Saturday (July 27) at home to Bridgwater, who finished third in the Western League last season. The match has a 3pm kick-off at Erme Valley.