New Campbellville Secondary hurt Ascension
HAVING defeated North Ruimveldt Multilateral 2-0 in their Digicel-sponsored nationwide Inter-Secondary School football competition first-round fixture last week Tuesday, New Campbellville Secondary followed it up with a commanding 3-0 win over Ascension Secondary School at the Carifesta Sports Complex ground yesterday afternoon. Following a goalless first half, in which New Campbellville missed several goa-scoring opportunities, with Shamar Barrow being their chief culprit on several occasions, in which he went for power instead of placement, Kareem Knights got a second-half double to push his team through.
When the game got under way, New Campbellville were all over their opponents who took the field brimming with confidence, having won their protest that was lodged against Freeburg Secondary School, who defeated them last Saturday at the same venue.
Barrow indicated his school’s intentions to come out on top early in the encounter, when he sent a powerful right-foot shot wide of the uprights, while Knights missed one of his crosses a few minutes later, with Ascension custodian Mark Smith left stranded on the first post.
Those near misses opened the eyes of Ascension who attacked in full force and defended the same way, with Joshua Ramoutar and Tarquin Atkins playing libero roles in both offence and defence for their team, thwarting the efforts of Barrow and his teammates on several occasions.
In the second half, Knights, took over the mantle of libero for New Campbellville and saw his first shot missing the uprights by inches, while another shot from Barrow went wide of the mark, much to the dismay of his peers.
Not to be outdone, Ramoutar himself fired several shots on his opponent’s goal, only to find Amanacke Ford being equal to the task in between the uprights for New Campbellville, pulling off an acrobatic save from an Atkins shot that was taken just inside his own half.
Following a goal-mouth scrimmage, Daniel Ross found the back of the net for New Campbellville in the 62nd minute and when Smith parried a shot from Barrow – that was taken inside the box, – Knights pounced on the loose ball that was weakly cleared by the defence to beat Smith six minutes later.
Barrow had a chance to make amends for his misses when his team was awarded a penalty kick, but he missed the entire goal area and was immediately substituted, only to watch Knights complete his double in the 86th minute of play, to send their team into the next round.
In other matches, New Opportunity Corps (NOC) and Ann’s Grove Secondary recorded 3-2 victories over Charity Secondary and Beterverwagting Secondary Schools respectively and while no goalscorers were available for the first encounter, Steve Francis (37th), Paul Collins (45th) and Levin Thomas (84th) were the players responsible for Ann’s Grove Secondary’s goals.
Paul Kingston struck a brace for Beterverwagting Secondary, doing so in the 62nd and 68th minutes of the match, while the action will continue with several preliminary round matches across Guyana today.