Inter-school football: Goalie Atharva saves the day for Don Bosco

Goalkeeper Atharva Gaonkar saves a penalty in the shootout yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble

Goalkeeper Atharva Gaonkar made two fine saves as defending champions Don Bosco (Matunga) overcame a dogged St Peter's (Mazgaon) 5-4 via sudden death in a boys' U-17 pre-quarter-final of the District Sports Organisation (DSO) Mumbai City inter-school football tournament at the Mumbai Police ground, Naigaon, on Friday. Don Bosco dominated, but failed to score. Sudden death came into play after the tie-breaker ended 4-4.

Atharva, who was not troubled throughout the match, made two crucial saves in the shootout and then converted the decisive kick in sudden death much to the relief of his teammates and coach Leslie Machado.

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Atharva saved the first penalty by Meer Ayman and after the tie-breaker was locked four-all, he blocked Anas Shaikh's attempt in the sudden death. Atharva then stepped up and coolly converted to secure the win for Don Bosco and a quarter-final meeting with Navy Children School (Colaba). Arya Kamble, Angelo Fernandes, Christiano Fernandes, and Om Kidrat were the other scorers for Don Bosco while St Peter's converted through Christian Ahian, Marne Ahad, Hassan Khan and Farzan Ansari.

Earlier, Navy Children beat Anjuman-I-Islam (Fort) 3-0 with Navneet S, Nitin Yadav and Adarsh Raj scoring a goal each. In another pre-quarterfinal encounter, Arhaan Bhat dished out a five-star performance scoring all the goals as Bombay Scottish (Mahim) blanked Greenlawns (Warden Road) 5-0.