HEAVYWEIGHT TUSSLE ENDS IN STALEMATE

Larne and Crusaders battled to a share of the spoils at Inver Park.

Scoreless at the break, both sides weren't without their chances during the first half.

Billy Joe Burns crafted perhaps the first effort of note with a header from Ben Kennedy's corner which forced Rohan Ferguson into a save, while the Larne keeper was called into action soon after to deal with a Ross Clarke corner.

At the other end Mark Randall attempted an audacious lob of Johnny Tuffey from fully 30 yards only to narrowly send the ball the wrong side of the target.

Ferguson then denied Adam Lecky before play switched again for Dylan Sloan to tee up Lee Bonis but he could only fire over.

The Crues came closest, however, after a Kennedy corner caused concern in the box with the ball eventually being deflected off an upright before being cleared to safety.

And Stephen Baxter's side almost broke the deadlock again around the hour mark when Clarke found Lecky but with his shot looking destined to find the target Ferguson pulled off a superb save to palm the ball over.

But it fell to Larne to open the scoring just a few moments later courtesy of a curling Levi Ives free-kick into the top corner awarded after he had been fouled by Rory McKeown.

Crusaders came close to levelling with a quarter-of-an-hour on the clock after a Heatley close range strike was tipped onto the crossbar by Ferguson, with the home keeper also dealing with the follow-up.

However there was nothing he could do five minutes after that when a mix-up in the defence allowed Kennedy to pounce on the loose ball to fire home from an acute angle.

Both sides had one further chance in the closing stages to steal the points with Heatley again seeing a strike touch over by Ferguson while, for Larne, Bonis saw an effort following a scramble in the box cleared off the line.

Larne: Ferguson, Want, Donnelly, Randall, O'Neill, Bonis, Ives, Lloyd, Bolger, Cosgrove, Sloan subs Dowling, Farquhar, Thomson, Allan, Paul, Glynn, Graham

Crusaders: Tuffey, Burns, Lowry, Kennedy, Lecky, O'Rourke, Larmour, Heatley, McKeown, Clarke, Anderson subs Kerr, Teelan, Forsythe, Kennedy, Owens, Smith, Robinson