Exeter City exited the Emirates FA Cup at the second round stage as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Hartlepool.
The winning goal came in extra-time, after the two sides had played out a goalless 90 minutes, from Josh Hawkes and sends the Pools into round three of the competition to face Oxford United away.
City manager Matt Taylor made four changes to the side that had beaten Northampton Town 3-2 on Saturday, with Lee Martin, Jake Taylor, Tom Parkes and Jayden Richardson coming into the side. Meanwhile Dave Challinor named the same starting XI for the hosts.
It was the Pools who started the brighter but the first chance of note, on 16 minutes, went the way of the Grecians as Jake Taylor stole the ball back in his own half and set up a counter attack where Ryan Bowman found Lee Martin who curled a shot just wide.
Ryan Donaldson then sliced an effort wide from 20 yards before a Jack Sparkes cross looped up into Jayden Richardson’s path at the back post only for his deflected effort to fide the side netting. The first effort on target saw Lee Martin force Ben Killip into a good save with a curling effort from the edge of the box. However, at the other end Jonny Maxted had to stick out a leg to stop a cross, that had been diverted by Pierce Sweeney, going past him.
The Grecians started the second half brightly as Ryan Bowman brought a fingertip save out of Ben Killip before Jack Sparkes sent in a low cross having beaten three players to get into the opposition box.
However, as the half wore on the hosts began to get a foothold in the game with substitute Nicky Kabamba and Gime Troure firing good efforts over and Hawkes having an effort well blocked by Tom Parkes. Archie Collins then produced a great sliding block to deny Hawkes with 15 minutes left as the Pools player looked destined to find the bottom corner with an effort from 12 yards out.
So, into extra-time the match went and it was there that the hosts found the breakthrough when Hawkes got in on the right side of the box and fired an effort across goal and into the top corner on 93 minutes.
City piled on the pressure for the rest of the extra-time period, forcing a number of corners, but the closest they came to an equaliser was a back post header from Tom Parkes from a Nicky Law cross. They were also dealt a further blow late on when Sparkes was shown a second yellow card and sent-off for hauling down a Hartlepool player as the attempted to counter-attack.
Hartlepool United: Killip, Richardson, Kerr, Raynes, Kitching, Featherstone, Mafuta, Hawkes (Chrichlow-Noble, 102), Donaldson, James (Kebamba, 57), Toure (Holohan, 114). Subs: Muir, Grey, Shepherd.
Booked: Kitching, Toure
Exeter City: Maxted, Sweeney, A Martin, L Martin (Fisher, 60), Law, Bowman (Atangana, 80), Parkes, Richardson (Williams, 56), Sparkes, Taylor (Moxey, 92), Collins. Subs: Visser, Jay, Seymour.
Booked: Taylor, Sweeney, Sparkes
Red: Sparkes