22 July,2015 08:18 AM IST | | Sundari Iyer
Despite travelling for five hours to reach Azad Maidan from Kandivli in their school bus amidst yesterday morning's heavy downpour, defending champions registered an impressive win over St Mary's SSC
Krish Adhikari (right) and Kunal Patel of St Lawrence High School, celebrate a goal against St Mary's (SSC) at Azad Maidan yesterday
Despite travelling for five hours to reach Azad Maidan from Kandivli in their school bus amidst yesterday morning's heavy downpour, defending champions St Lawrence registered an impressive 5-0 win over St Mary's SSC (Mazagaon) in their Mumbai Schools Sports Association (MSSA) boys U-16 Division I encounter.
Krish Adhikari (right) and Kunal Patel of St Lawrence High School, celebrate a goal against St Mary's (SSC) at Azad Maidan yesterday. Pic/Shadab Khan
Lawrence striker Krish Adhikari opened the scoring in the ninth minute unleashing a right footer. In the 20th minute, Kunal Patel pounced on a loose ball to score from close range.
Verbal war
St Mary's players continuously engaged in verbal duels with the Kandivli lads. However, it didn't affect the defending champions, who only added to the scoreline thereafter. In the 25th minute, Priyang Preman scored off a free kick and 10 minutes later, Kunal scored his second goal of the match with a neat angled shot beating St Mary's goalkeeper Sudhanshu Supekar at his left post. Five minutes later, Lawrence's Shivnarayan Gupta completed the rout.
Krish and teammate Shivnarayan of St Lawrence, and St Mary's captain Shadrach Cardoza and teammate Omar Shah were all shown yellow cards by referee Joaquim Varela for indulging in verbal arguments.
Lawrence coach Lachman Singh Bisht blamed the opposition players for instigating his boys. St Mary's coach Deepak Irmali, however, justified his players' actions claiming that they were frustrated for having to wait for a long time for St Lawrence to arrive at the venue. "But that's no excuse for them speaking out like that. I'll ensure this doesn't happen again," said Irmali.
Meanwhile, former champions Don Bosco 'A' (Matunga) thrashed Hiranandani Foundation (Powai) 8-0 in another Div I match. Flynn D'Cruz and Shreyas Sails scored three goals each for the Matunga side, while Clivert Miller and Atharva Ghatkar netted a goal each.
Other results:
At Azad Maidan: B-16-I: St Joseph's (Wadala) 0 drew with Swami Vivekanand (Kandivli) 0; Navy Children (Colaba) 3 (Ankesh Kumar, Prayag Singh, Amit Kumar) bt Christ Church School (Byculla) 0.
At St Xavier's Ground, Parel: B-16-III:Anza High School (Byculla) 3 (Ansari Kamran 3) drew with Maneckji Cooper (Juhu) 3 (Zaid Chhabdia 2, Azaan Patel); St Anthony's (Vakola) 1 (Istehram Shaikh) drew with Don Bosco 'B' (Matunga) 1 (Myron Fernandes).
