Kane Drummond’s goal was not enough to come back in a hard-fought game to end Michael Clegg’s sides promotion hopes and cement Marine as playoff victors.
Drummond’s audacious shot seemed to be taken care of by the keeper who dove to his right and got a hand to the ball.
However, the ball escaped Bobby Jones’ grasp and rolled into the goal to half the deficit and offer hope for the home side.
In the 25th minute, the referee blew his whistle and pointed to the penalty spot after Sol Solomon was brought down in the box.
Finlay Sinclair-Smith buried the penalty into the bottom left corner beyond Ollie Byrne’s reach despite diving the right way to put the visitors ahead.
Scrappy defending from the home side meant that Jack Bainbridge was left open for an attempt which he put away to push his team two goals ahead.
Macclesfield came close to converting from a corner when the ball fell to Paul Dawson whose powerful attempt skimmed the woodwork and went out for a goal kick.
John Rooney tried to play a short pass to Kane Drummond from a free kick which was denied but eventually fell to Danny Lafferty who struck the ball.
Lafferty’s effort bounced off the ground and was calmly collected into the gloves of the Marine goalkeeper.
Owen Robinson sliced the ball from the edge of the box which flew towards goal and rattled the crossbar in the second half.
The away side had a second opportunity to score on the rebound which Byrne got in the way of and the attack eventually fizzled out.
It was a shaky start to the second half for the Silkmen as Sinclair-Smith hit the post from just outside the 6-yard box after a pass across goal rolled past Pemberton to the path of the Mariners forward.
Duffy’s curling effort from just outside the box almost found its way into the far-right corner, but Jones parried the ball away at full stretch to the disappointment of the crowd.
Marine attempted to slow down the game throughout the match to kill any of Macclesfield’s momentum which proved to be an effective strategy.
This result means that Marine have been promoted and the Silkmen remain in the Northern Premier League- Premier division for another season where they will hope to push for promotion once again.
