Teenage Dover Athletic midfielder Luke Baptiste hoping for more goals and assists after scoring first senior goal

Teenage Dover midfielder Luke Baptiste is hoping to chip in with more goals and assists this season having scored his first senior goal.

Baptiste capped his first competitive start of the campaign, scoring Whites’ fourth in their 4-0 home National League South win on Saturday against Hemel Hempstead Town.

“It’s given me a lot of confidence scoring my first senior goal,” said Baptiste who, aged 18, first signed first-team terms at Crabble in January.

“Hopefully now, I can go into other games and score more and I can get some assists as well.”

Baptiste was one of a host of promising Academy prospects to be given a run in the first-team last term as Whites were relegated from the National League. Fellow midfielder George Wilkinson, Will Moses, Noah Carney, Harrison Byford, Alex Green and George Nikaj also stepped up into the senior ranks, and Baptiste accepts it helps they were all promoted around the same time.

He explained: “It helps a lot because, obviously, we've grown up together. It’s not like we are coming in one by one, we are all coming in together and helping to mould into the team together.

“Having your friends there from the Academy helps a lot, yeah.”

Against Hemel, with Whites already 3-0 ahead, Baptiste capped a fine performance in stoppage-time with a goal. He went on a mazy run before he fired past Hemel keeper Craig King.

On his goal, he said: “I just thought ‘let me just drive to the corner’, took on the player and then came inside and had that chance to shoot. So I put my foot through it.

“It was such a relief. I was tired as well, having run from the halfway line but, to score that goal, I was buzzing!”

Baptiste has plenty of more experienced players to learn from in Dover’s first-team and - even after