OLD Malton St Mary’s beat York Minster Engineering League rivals Huntington Rovers 7-6 on penalties to lift the North Riding FA Saturday County Cup at Pickering Town.

The scores had been deadlocked at 2-2 following 90 minutes with Tom Hoggard and Damon Cox twice giving Old Malton the lead, only for Huntington to respond through Chris Dyson’s penalty and a Jon James effort.

Last season’s league champions started brightly with a goalmouth scramble calling Huntington keeper James Edmond into early action.

A few minutes later, Edmond saved a close-range, one-on-one effort from Hoggard and Josh Whaite also shot over the bar with only the advancing Rovers net-minder to beat.

Following their slow start, Huntington started to settle down, but Hoggard still opened the scoring on 23 minutes when he picked up the rebound after Cox had rattled the crossbar.

Moments later, though, Iain Dunn’s men were back on terms when Dyson was tripped in the Malton penalty area and scored the resulting spot kick despite Nick Lock getting a hand to the ball.

From the restart, Old Malton went straight down to Huntington’s penalty area with Steve Baxter unleashing a shot at Edmond and, on the stroke of half-time, Cox fired home from a corner.

Cox was almost on target again straight after the break as his header hit the Huntington cross bar, but James made it 2-2 with his second attempt after Lock has saved his initial effort.

Old Malton again put pressure on a resilient Rovers and came closest to settling matters before the shoot-out when, on 83 minutes, Edmond saved a Robbie Baker shot.

Skipper Baker was later lifting the trophy, however, with the presentation made by Shaun Campbell, of The Arthur Wharton Foundation.