New Youngs and Isipatana enter semi-finals

Bernard Perera

New Youngs Sports Club from Wennappuwa cruised into the semi-final of the Old Bens Golden Jubilee Soccer Tournament beating the hosts Old Bens SC in a tie breaker by five goals to three yesterday at the St. Benedict’s College grounds.

In the schools segment Isipatana College with an upset 1-0 win over De Mazenod College made their way to the semi-finals at the same venue.

The Old Bens - New Youngs game was evenly contested right through out the 80 minutes. Top class soccer being displayed by both teams. The Wennappuwa team got the lead in the 4th minute when Sampath Perera’s header found the net.

The good ball coming from the right wing.

Old Bens had to work hard from there onwards and saw them find the equaliser in the 13th minute through Indika Prasad’s header from a corner kick. Lemons were taken with the same score.

The second half became a ding dong battle as both teams were hard pressed to get the most vital goal to go ahead. Old Bens penetrated their opponents on many occasions but could not find the correct target.

On the other side Wennappuwa team too worked the ball well with good short passes but they too failed to add anything to their score and the final whistle went with scores on level terms 1-1.

Referee Priyanga Peiris introduced the tie-breaker system. New Youngs SC’s custodiam saved the first shot taken by the Old Bens which paved the way for their 5-3 (1-1) victory.

Isipatana triumph

In the school segment Isipatana outplayed much fancied De Mazemod College, Kandana in a hard fought game. It was the Kandana school that everyone expected to perform well. But the Isipatana boys played their best game of the season and held the strong Mazenodians to a 0-0 all first half.

After the turn around Mazenodians tried everything they had in store to score, but the Insipatana defence line stood firm to keep their opponents at bay.

Just 30 minutes in to this session Panduka Priyanka made inroads to their opponents territory to score which also sealed victory for them to move to the semis. Isipatana will meet the winners of St. Benedict’s Vs St. Joseph’s College game which is scheduled for Wednesday. Yesterday’s winners New Youngs SC, will confront Blue Star SC in the second semi-final next Sunday at the same venue.