SHOLING may be quitting the Southern League at the end of the season, but they certainly won’t be going out with a whimper.

The Boatmen’s determination to stage a grandstand finish was evident last night as they blitzed Evesham United 7-1 at the Silverlake Arena.

Sholing scored all eight goals, falling behind on six minutes when Kev Brewster inadvertently headed into his own net.

But two quick replies from Lee Wort in the 13th and 16th minutes gave the Boatmen the upper hand at half-time and the 21-year-old hotshot completed his hat-trick 11 minutes after the restart.

Marvin McLean set up Barry Mason to make it 4-1 and goals then arrived at regular intervals as Tyronne Bowers, Lewis Fennemore and Pete Castle completed a landslide victory which lifts Sholing to 12th in Division One South & West.

“We were going to do that to someone sooner or later and it was pretty impressive considering we went a goal down,” said manager Dave Diaper.

“I told the lads to chill and go out and play a bit of football.

“We still had 42 points to play for going into the game and I said it was important not to just let the season slide away.”

With Lee Bright, Alex Sawyer and Marc Diaper suspended and Byron Mason out with an ankle injury, the result spoke volumes for Sholing’s strength in depth.

Promising reserve defender Dan Miller played and they had four lads on the bench who had featured in the Wyvern Cup semi-final win the night before. One of them, Jamie Craven, went on for the last 15 minutes.

News was not so good for Winchester City, who dropped to the foot of the table without kicking a ball.

Bishops Cleeve’s 2-0 win over Abingdon United raised them two points above Winchester who have played four games more.