Crawley manager Scott Lindsey celebrated a “big result” after they made it three consecutive wins with a 1-0 victory over fellow play-off hopefuls Accrington.
Defender Harry Ransom’s first goal for Town sealed the win, heading home Will Wright’s corner via the post in the 68th minute, to move Crawley up to eighth place in the league.
Stanley had double-figure chances but found Crawley keeper Corey Addai in top form.
Their best chance fell to Jake Bickerstaff in the sixth minute who was clean through but Addai did enough to deny him.
Lindsey said: “I am pleased with the result, it was a big result, and a clean sheet.
“Having said that, in the first five minutes, they had five shots and so we were a little open so I wasn’t happy with that.
“And Corey has done too much work again. I am pleased with effort and endeavour of the players but we have to make sure Corey doesn’t have to make that many saves and that’s the only disappointment for me.
“At the other end, I feel we got into good areas but we did not make enough of it.
“We ended up scoring from a set-piece, Harry Ransom sticks it in, it’s a great goal, but I want to see us score from open play in a game like today.
“I can’t be greedy, this is a tough place to come. They have good players, a good manager and are well-organised so winning 1-0 is a good result.
“The last two play-off off places down to mid-table and beyond, there are so many teams who can get in those final play-off spots and no one is taking control.
“We have to keep winning, five or six wins, if we are to take a play-off spot. This is a great win but we have to keep going, we are not done.”
John Coleman saw his side have 23 efforts on goal, 10 on target.
However, they could not find the breakthrough as the Reds dropped to 14th place.
“It’s frustrating but on the positive side, the pleasing thing is we are making more chances,” said Coleman.
“We have wasted a couple of opportunities, if Jake’s chance had gone in early on we would have gone on and won the game, but it wasn’t to be and you have to take your chances when presented.
“Their keeper has been worked the most by a mile. Our keeper has made one good save but they didn’t really look like scoring.
“These are fine margins. People don’t mean to lose their man from corners but it happens and it has cost us.
“I just don’t think a lot of things bounced for us today but we kept on going to the end.”