Kingswood College turned tables on one of schools football giants, Maris Stella College winning 3-1 in group B of the All Island Schools Football Championship.
Kingswood College better known for their rugby than football are experiencing a state of delirium after winning the Division II championship and getting promoted to Division I while this win enhances their growing reputation of a force to reckon with. Both sides were coming off with a win against Ananda College; Kingswood winning 3-0 while Maris Stella decimating the anandians 13-0. Naturally the results made Maris Stella favourites but the Randles Hill boys had other ideas.
Kingswood went into halftime 2-0 with goals from Chamika Dilruwan and Anjana Wickramasinghe. Maris Stella College cut the lead in half with 20 minutes to go but with the visitors searching to an equalizer Kingswood put the game to rest with their third with minutes left in the game.
Both teams took time in settling down but it was the hosts who took early control of the match with decisive plays. Shamil Hilmy in the 19th minute played a delightful ball to Chamika Dilruwan who made no mistake in slotting it into the net. Maris Stella with KasunSandeepa in mid-field tried to penetrate the Kingswood back four but the defense held firm.
Kingswood once again was rewarded for their hard work when Anjana Wickramasinghe put a perfectly taken free-kick into the back of the net in the 30th minute with some help from sloppy play by Maris Stella goalkeeper.
Maris Stella College started the second half in a positive manner creating chances but it took them until the 67th minute to halve the lead through Kasun Sandeepa making it an interesting 2-1. The game livened up with the visitors searching for an equalizer pushed men forward but the Kingswoodians managed to keep them at bay. With three minutes left in the clock Abdul Quadir settled the home team nerves with a clean strike sending their fans into ecstasy and making them favourites to top group B.
ThePapare.com Man of the Match: Shamil Hilmy
Dharmaraja cool down St.Peter’s, but not enough
Dharmaraja College managed to stem the flow of goals scored by the free-scoring Peterites but it still wasn’t enough as the visitors made it four out of four wins with a 4-0 win at the Peradeniya Campus ground.
St.Peter had scored 20 goals leading upto the match and only letting in 2 with a hard fought 2-1 win over S.Thomas’ College in their previous fixture while Dharmaraja College had won three of the four matches losing only to S.Thomas’.
For the Peterites Afam Akram, Sundararaj Niresh and Yohan Wickramasinghe scored while the fourth was an own goal by Dharmaraja’s S.C. Thilakarathne.
Rajans chances of qualifying to the quarter finals hangs in the balance and will need other results to go their way with S.Thomas’ and St.Benedict’s having two games left and tied on 6 points each.
