Life's a pitch for these JB Petit girls!

Leading from the front, JB Petit (Fort) skipper Alaia Singh scored a brace in the team's 3-0 win over Sacred Heart School (Worli) in their Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA) girl's under-16 Division I match at Azad Maidan yesterday.

The win was even more commendable considering that the team practices on a concrete basketball quadrangle in their school premises.

JB Petit's Alaia Singh (in blue) skips past tackles from Afiya Sheikh (left) and Priyanka Yadav (right) at Azad Maidan yesterday. Pic/Suresh KK

"It is not easy to adjust to the Azad Maidan pitch, considering that we practice on a concrete surface, which is actually a basketball quadrangle. The area that we practice on is hardly 1/4th of this ground. The team found it difficult to play as a unit but I am glad we managed to win," said Alaia.

The striker also lamented that she finds it difficult to convince the players to play. "There aren't many tournaments for girls. Apart from football, I am a long distance runner so athletic events keep me busy throughout the year. But for most of my team members, it's just a month of football after which studies take over most of their time. So it's actually very tough to form a team and get them to practice for tournaments," she added.

Zarastyn Mistry opened the scoring for the Fort school in the fifth minute. Alaia then extended the lead in the 29th minute before doubling her tally in the 31th minute.

Meanwhile, in another match, Jamnabai ‘A' (Juhu) beat Arya Vidyamandir (Juhu) 1-0 courtesy Kareena Shah's goal.

OTHER RESULTS: Girls U-16: Greenlawns 1 (Aditi Mehta) bt Sundatta HS 0; Boys U-16 Div-IV: Maulana Azad 2 (Ansari Durban 2) bt Sacred Heart 1 (Sayed Samir); Fatima 2 (Lance D'Souza 2) bt City International 1 (Nabeel Qureshi).u00a0