Peterhead ended Stenhousemuir’s 12-game winning run at Balmoor thanks to Hamish Ritchie’s brace, which gave them a well deserved 2-1 victory over the League Two leaders.
The Blue Toon opened the scoring after half an hour when Danny Strachan’s cross found Ritchie who headed home from eight yards.
Four minutes later, the visitors levelled when Adam Brown’s corner was nodded in by Gregor Buchanan.
After the break, Conor O’Keefe and Peter Pawlett both went close before Ritchie struck again with 25 minutes remaining when he curled an Andy McCarthy cut-back into the bottom corner to seal all three points.
Player co-manager Ryan Strachan admitted the weather played a part in proceedings.
He said: “The conditions were difficult, the Balmoor wind was strong and ever present and it kind of made both halves going into the wind a bit difficult defensively.
“I think we played the conditions OK and we are delighted to get over the line with a victory.
“I thought, in the end, we deserved the win.”
Goalscorer Ritchie knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get the victory.
He said: “They’re a winning machine just now with 12 on the bounce so we knew it was going to be a hard game.
“We stuck to our game plan well and did our jobs.
“It is a great result.
“I thought we were brilliant in the second half and deserved the win.”
Defender Danny Strachan hopes the 2-1 win proves to be an important result come the end of the season.
He said: “It’s a massive win. That’s our standard, no matter how good a run they’re on, they’re going to come up here and it’s never going to be an easy game.
“I thought we deserved it, we played very well.”
Strachan was pleased to be involved in the opening goal.
He added: “I should be getting more assists and goals in games so it was brilliant to get the cross for the goal.
“I could have had a goal about ten minutes earlier but it’s good to contribute.
“I don’t think you can fault anyone, I thought we looked really solid as a unit, they scored from a set piece but apart from that, for being the most dangerous team in the league, we limited them to very little.”
