MSSA football: Apostolic, Cathedral win bronze battles

The Apostolic Carmel girls after beating Bombay Scottish to win third place in the girls U-16 Division-I at Cooperage yesterday

Apostolic Carmel (Bandra) and Cathedral & John Connon (Fort) earned some consolation by winning their respective girls' and boys' U-16 Division-I third-place matches of the MSSA inter-school football tournament at Cooperage yesterday. Last year's champions Apostolic Carmel beat Bombay Scottish (Mahim) 4-1 via the tie-breaker after full-time finished in a goalless draw. Earlier, Cathedral prevailed over St. Stanislaus by a 1-0 margin with skipper Jaden Irani converting a penalty in the 39th minute.

The Apostolic Carmel girls played with plenty of determination and defended resolutely as they survived a barrage of rival attacks. Goalkeeper Carrisa Fernandes showed some fine anticipation and did not hesitate to charge out to make some timely saves to ensure her team held out for a goalless draw. In the ensuing tie-breaker, the Bandra girls showed better nerves as they converted from the first four attempts, through Riya D'Souza, Keisha Fernandes, Ash D'Silva and Lael Rego, while only Kyra Gore converted for the Scottish side. Harshali Mandaonkar shot over and skipper Riva Mayekar's shot was blocked by Apostolic Carmel captain Ash, who decided to stand under the bar.

Cathedral and John Connon boys after their victory over St Stanislaus in the third-place match. Pics/Atul kamble

Interestingly, this was the second win of the day for Apostolic Carmel, having earlier humbled Arya Vidya Mandir (Juhu), who were crowned MSSA Div-I champions on Monday, by a convincing 4-0 margin in the Subroto Cup girls' U-17 final. Earlier, Cathedral started in fine fashion and had a flurry of attempts at the rival goal, but failed to open the scoring in the first session. They were also lucky as St. Stanislaus wasted a penalty when Reuben Rodrigues failed to beat Cathedral custodian Divans Desai, who made a good save.

In the second session, Cathedral earned a penalty and skipper Jaden easily converted to give his team the decisive lead which they managed to hold on to till the final whistle. "I'm happy to finish third but disappointed that we could not emerge champions. Initially, we were considered the favourities" said Jaden.

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