Crewe Alexandra's youngsters are through to the third round of the FA Youth Cup after overcoming North West neighbours Stockport County on penalty kicks. Crewe kept their nerve in the decisive shoot-out to win 4-2 and book a third round tie at either Accrington Stanley or Carlisle United.

After 120 minutes of end-to-end football tonight's match ended in a 3-3 stalemate and it was difficult to seperate both sides. Crewe started the brighter of the two sides and took an early lead through midfielder Matt Lund after he headed home a Danny Shelley cross after just 10 minutes. Crewe controlled the early exchanges but the home side soon began to grow in confidence and they hit back just seven minutes later when Kyle Wilkie drove home a shot from 25 yards.

Stockport arguably just shaded the possession in the first half and they took the lead just 12 minutes into the second period when Richard Ratcliffe reacted quickest to a cross from Tim Lawton to score at the near post.

Crewe continued to press for an equaliser and deservedly found one on 74 minutes when Ben Marshall, for the second round running, produced another stunning direct free-kick. The Crewe youngsters finished the second half strongly but couldn't find that knockout winner in normal time.

The tie continued to be a thriller in extra-time. Crewe regained the lead on 96 minutes when Shelley's super shot from around 40 yards out deceived everyone to find its way into the back of the Stockport net.

The scoring didn't end there though and Stockport forced penalties when piling too much pressure on the Alex defence, Kelvin Mellor could only divert a cross from John Disney into his own net.

Crewe produced the goods in the shoot-out to decide a tie between two fairly evenly matched sides.