COVENTRY City held off a late Alvechurch fightback to book their place in the Birmingham Senior Cup final with a 3-2 victory against the Worcestershire side in the last four.
Teenager Tristen Batanwi opened the scoring and then set up Justin Obikwu and Danny Cashman for goals early in the second period at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
And despite Jamie Soule and Danny Waldron scoring late for Alvechurch, John Dempster’s young side held on to book a final date with Southern League Premier Central club Stourbridge.
Dempster said: “It was a brilliant game, we definitely had the better of the game but they made it difficult for us at the end.
“We were hanging on at the end but the overall performance was fantastic and it’s brilliant to get through to a cup final.
“I thought he [Tristen Batanwi] was man of the match, for an under-17 to perform like that against a men’s team is unbelievable, he was involved in all three goals in different ways.
“We want the players to be tested, we want to see if they have resilience and they showed that in abundance.
“Even the staff were getting a bit excited towards the end which added to a good atmosphere and a good spectacle.
“The job is not done yet, we want to get to the final and win it, I’m really proud of the players’ effort.”
Coventry took the lead on five minutes when Batanwni lashed the ball home from Obikwu’s square pass after Waldron had gone close for Church at the other end.
And City doubled their lead on 46 minutes when Obikwu controlled Batanwi’s floated cross and picked out the left corner of the goal.
Coventry struck again just three minutes later as Cashman finished into an empty net from Batanwi’s pass after the latter latched onto Josh Dugmore’s weak back pass.
Alvechurch eventually pulled a goal back on 74 minutes when Soule produced a superb first time finish on the turn into the left corner after Coventry failed to clear their lines at a corner.
And the visitors were then awarded a penalty on 89 minutes when Soule went down after he challenged for a ball in the air as the referee waved away Coventry’s protests.
Waldron casually tucked away the spot kick as he sent Luke Bell the wrong way but Coventry saw out seven minutes of added time to reach a first Birmingham Senior Cup final since 2007.
