Preston North End's youth team surffered their second penalty defeat in the same day after losing 4-3 from the spot against Derry City.

The young guns' bad luck continued when, after a 2-2 draw in normal time, both Luke Clark and Michael McLellan missed their spot-kicks to send the Whites home without a win.

Ironically the two who missed against City were the same two who scored in the previous penalty shoot out against Aileach earlier on in the competition.

But the lads will take plenty of positives from the performance with U16s star Ryan Crosdale proving to be a big hit in the middle of the park.

After making a good start the Whites fell beind against the run of play when full back Luke Clark was ruled to have handled the ball inside the area following a fine sliding challenge to prevent what would have been a certain goal.

Derry's number ten tucked away the resulting penalty kick to send the Irish outfit into a 1-0 early lead leaving the Whites with a up hill battle.

But only four minutes later and Jamie Hoyland's men responded with a fine move down the right channel through 16-year-old Doyle Middleton. The central midfielder, who was playing out on the left, raced clear of Derry's full back only to unselfishly pull the ball back rather than shooting resulting in the ball being cleared into touch.

And on 18 minutes the young wiz kid, known around the camp as Gazza, waltzed past two defenders before setting up McLellan who failed to hit the target with a loose effort from the edge of the area.

But North End's dominance began to pay off and on the 25 minute mark Matt Dudley made it honours even after bravely latching onto the end of a Middleton cross to send the ball back across the keeper and into the bottom corner.

After the break Preston were the first to launch an attack when Naim El-Harrati raced through the heart of the City defence only for the out-stretched arm of the goalkeeper to deny him getting on the scoresheet.

But North End's fine play soon turned to disaster when Devine failed to tackle Derry's first goalscorer who duly doubled his tally from close range leaving Comrie with no chance.

The tricky forward managed to work his way into plenty of space before getting the better of North End's Northern Irish international and slotting a low right footed drive past Comrie in goal.

Refusing to let their heads go down the Lancashire team rallied and their persistance finally paid off after only six minutes when McLellan slotted home following a fine through ball from Middleton.

The big striker kept his cool infront of goal to send a low drive into the bottom corner of the net to bring the Whites on level terms with around 17 minutes remaining.

And with six minutes to go Hoyland must've thought his team had won it when Dudley went clean through but his chip on the already committed goalkeeper proved to be insufficient to beat the shot stopper.

Now North End were beginning to get a sense of de-ja-vu after finding themselves in their second penalty shoot-out in the space of three hours.

But once again the spot-kicks got the better of the Lilywhites and derry, who scored all but one of their spot-kicks went home with a big smile on their faces.

PNE: Comrie; Clark, Devine, Holtom, James; Middleton, El-Harrati, Crosdale, Timlin; Dudley, McLellan.
Subs: Wright, Parish, Hall.