Deveronvale climbed above visitors Formartine United and into eighth place in the Highland League table thanks to a 3-0 home win against the Pitmedden side.
Vale are now unbeaten in four games following victories over Clach and Huntly and a draw with Wick.
The home side had to make a late change 10 minutes before kick off when Dan Smith who has recently returned from a long-term knee injury had to be stretchered off during the warm-up.
Formartine started well with Gary Wood’s near-post header rebounding to safety off the post after 10 minutes.
Vale opened the scoring three minutes later when Scott Dunn’s fine cross-field pass picked out Colin Charlesworth who beat Johnny Crawford before firing an angled drive into the corner of the net.
Six minutes later Stuart Smith brought down Charlesworth in the box but Harry Noble’s spot kick was saved by Kevin Main.
Vale, however, doubled their lead six minutes from the break when Charlesworth lobbed the ball over the visiting defence for Ryan Sargent to net from 16 yards.
Vale finished the game as a contest three minutes after the break when Ross Aitken scored the goal of the game by slipping the ball between two defenders before rounding Main and strolling the ball into the empty net from close range.
Vale assistant manager Craig Stewart said: “This was probably the result of the day in the league as we should not be anywhere near Formartine in terms of resources but the players showed what they are capable of.
“It’s probably the first time this season that everything has come together from back to front because as well as scoring three times we also kept a clean sheet.”
Formartine manager Paul Lawson said: “The performance added to others is not good enough for Formartine and things could get worse before they get better as we look to sort things out.
“It could have been different had Gary Wood’s header gone in before Vale scored but once they got the opener they deserved to go and win the game.
“We had the lion’s share of possession but no end product.”
