Luton has booked a place Sky Betting Championship Play-off final with 2-0 win Sunderland.
Halftime goals from defenders Gabe Osho and Tom Lockyer gave them a win over the Wearsiders, while the Hatters pleased the noisy crowd on Kenilworth Road.
It proved enough for Rob Edwards’ team to break through a 2-1 first game deficit and score a 3-2 overall success.
A Wembley final against Coventry or Middlesbrough awaits on 27 May and Luton is aiming for a return to English senior football after a 31-year hiatus.
The Hatters got their needed breakthrough in the 10th minute when Osho touched home at close range after the visitors failed a Jordan Clark corner.
Three minutes later, Sunderland approached an equalizer when Pierre Ekwah saw a slight effort from Patrick Roberts’ corner being rescued by Ethan Horvath. The midfielder was the sharpest player to rebound, but his effort hit the board and the visitors’ penalty appeal came to naught.
Luton came close to a second after Luke O’Nien pushed Carlton Morris’ effort off the line after Anthony Patterson failed to catch Alfie Doughty’s cross at 22 minutes.
The home team threatened again when Morris made a full-length save from Patterson, who was relieved to see Lockyer’s header fall just ahead of his post a few seconds later.
After a good run by Elijah Adebayo, in the 38th minute, Morris only shot wide as the hosts tried to take the lead in the draw.
They did so five minutes later, when Lockyer took advantage of the gap, past Patterson, and headed diagonally from Doughty.
Morris had a great chance to make the situation 3-0 within 30 seconds of the restart and Patterson mistook him, but the striker shone.
This was proving to be a very distant game for an injury-ravaged Sunderland side in the closing stages of the campaign, especially on defense – Aji Alese returned from injury as the game’s first backup in the 58th minute.
The bout was getting tense, and Alese soon produced a timely challenge to reject Adebayo as he prepared a shot before Roberts finished a promising run with a weak shot.
14 minutes before the end of the match, the same player shot and the Black Cats, who finished the match 11 points behind their opponent, wanted to take the match to overtime.
But with Luton’s Cody Drameh closest to scoring in the closing stages, they rarely looked like this, scoring a free goal in extra time after Patterson came in for a corner.
The final whistle signaled the joyous celebrations of much of the 10,013 crowd, including a large-scale invasion of the field.
PA
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