It's champagne time for St Vincent's

Photo: Mukund Bhute

JN Petit celebrates double win here on Saturday

B D Narayankar

bapun@sakalherald.com

PUNE: In an arena where success has a short lifespan and spectre of defeats always staring at you, it is indeed a heroic act for any seven-time title-clincher to grab eyeballs and prove that fire still burns in their hearts even now.

The U-18 Surendra Anand Memorial Inter-School Football Tournament finals saw St Vincent’s and Army Public School (APS) trying to shine through as they were desperate to raise a toast for their retired players of yores. At last, it was St Vincent’s that re-lived their coach Wilson Andrews victory razzmatazz once more.

The Vincent’s were convincing winners against APS, thrashing them 2-1, which turned out to be a close encounter in dying stages of the match, after both the teams went into the first half goalless.

A sparse spectators, occupying some corners of Loyola Ground, saw Craig Pereria and Danish Shaikh pierce a goal apiece for Vincent’s. Deependra Singh Chauhan was the lone scorer for APS.

Craig Pereria made the first breakthrough for Vincent’s, scoring in 40th minute with a powerful header from inside the penalty box on a corner kick.

Danish Shaikh made it 2-0 in 47th after receiving a cross from Akash Deodhar and firing in from the edge of the box to left-hand side of APS goalkeeper Jaswaran Singh.

APS’ first goal came just two minutes away from the final whistle as Deependra Singh Chauhan sent in the goal wide of diving St Vincent’s goalkeeper Sangram Lonkar on a penalty kick.

The Vincent’s failed to raise their visions of a superlative game as Amrutam Christopher and Steven Charles, both forwards, displayed a below par game. Perhaps there was something to do with the ground that they played on today.

Unlike the SSPSM Ground, Loyola Ground was a difficult terrain as it was an arduous task for players to accelerate their pace. In fact, they were tired out towards the end of first half itself. As a result they were found wanting in running past their opponents to cream in the easiest of goals.

RESULTS: U-12: Loyala 1 (Meghraj Nargund) bt St Vincent’s 0; U-14: JN Petit 4 (Rohan Kadam, Jumaid Khimjibhai, Omkar Prabhu, Suraj Kadam) bt Loyala 2 (Dhanraj Nargund, Pranav Siddeshwar); U-16: JN Petit 6 (Pratik Swaminathan 2, Vaibhav More, Ryan Yadgiri, Pizon Kodia, Samarth Gandhi) bt St Vincent’s 5 (Ninan Korunthetical, Allan Cyril, Manish Sirsat, Josua Monserrate); U-18: 2 (Craig Periera, Danish Shaikh) bt Army Public School 1 (Deependra Singh Chauhan)