High-flying Preston North End rescued a 1-1 draw with League One's bottom side Yeovil Town thanks to a debut goal from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake at Deepdale this evening.
Inside the opening two minutes Paul Gallagher skipped clear of a Yeovil defender and curled an effort narrowly wide of the far post as the home side started brightly.
On 15 minutes Jermaine Beckford sent a long-range effort narrowly wide, before nodding Gallagher's free kick just over the top of Jed Steer's goal a minute later.
Kieffer Moore and Gozie Ugwu both had efforts well saved by Sam Johnstone as Yeovil began to carve out a foothold on the game, and they could have gone ahead just before half time had the Preston goalkeeper not reacted quickly to beat away Jamar Loza's effort.
However, in the dying seconds of the first half Gary Johnson's side took the lead when Ugwu reacted quickest to fire home from close range after Preston failed to deal with a free kick from the right.
Following the restart Steer's sprawling save denied Josh Brownhill on 55 minutes, and five minutes later he was again alert to deny Scott Laird.
Substitute Kyel Reid nearly had an instant impact for the home side, but his whipped cross just evaded the unmarked Chris Humphrey at the back post.
Fellow substitute Ebanks-Blake then opened his Preston account when he collected Kevin Davies's flick and rounded Steer to level the game in the 75th minute.
Ebanks-Blake then nearly won the game for Simon Grayson's side, but his overhead kick in the dying minutes flew narrowly over the bar.
The result keeps Preston in fourth place, while Yeovil remain bottom but move level on points with Crawley Town and Colchester United in 23rd and 22nd places respectively.
Joe Sharratt
