Jonathan’s lucky strike helps St Stanislaus win

St Stanislaus’s Jonathan Pires chases St Paul’s Vedant Mhetar (right) at the St Francis D’Assisi ground, Borivli. Pic/Satej Shinde

St Stanislaus (Bandra) were fortunate to come out trumps, snatching a 1-0 win over St Paul's (Dadar) in a boys U-16 Group-C match of the MSSA inter-school football tournament at St Francis D'Assisi ground (Borivli) on Saturday. Last year's runners-up, St Stanislaus, starting without two of their reliable players - captain Zidane Fernandes (midfielder) and Ethan D'Souza (stopper) both undertaking a pilgrimage abroad - looked a disjointed lot.

On the other hand, the Dadar boys combined well as a unit. They also enjoyed the lion's share of the attacks and created better scoring opportunities, but somehow failed to beat St Stanislaus captain and goalkeeper Jordan Kamble. St Stanislaus were lucky to get on to the scoresheet with dead-ball specialist Jonathan Pires scoring the lone goal in the 21st minute of the first half. Following an indirect free-kick Jonathan's swerving shot saw St Paul's goalkeeper Pranav Joshi unnecessarily trying to get his hands on the ball only to deflect it into his own net.

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In another match, Don Bosco (Borivli) scored an authoritative 6-0 win over St Joseph's (Wadala) in a Group C encounter. The Borivli boys scored two goals each through their captain Cristiano Lewis and Aarav Katoria while Reenesh Kotian and Devesh Jadhav netted one goal apiece to complete the tally. In the third match of the day, Dominic Savio (Andheri) beat Smt RSB Arya Vidya Mandir (Juhu) 2-0 with strikers Vedant Devlekar and Daniel D'Souza scoring a goal in each half.