WHEN play continued in the Digicel Schools Football tournament on Monday, Charlestown Secondary eased past Leonora Secondary 4-1 in their round of 32 clash at the Leonora Ground, West Coast Demerara.

Playing in front of a sizable “pro-Leonora crowd’, the Charlestown outfit was cautious at the start of the game, taking time on the ball before settling into a nice passing rhythm and then began to dominate possession.

Despite Charlestown’s domination on the ball, Leonora’s defence managed to snuff out their opponents forward runs in the early stages, but were left undone around the midway mark in the first half.

Seizing on a loose ball at the edge of Leonora’s goal area, Andrew Carto thumped one into the back of the net to set Charlestown on their way in the 19th minute. That would be the only goal of the first half as Leonora continued to put up a resistance even managing a few forward forays into opposition territory.

The second half, however, was a different ball game altogether. Coming out with a 1-0 lead, Charlestown upped their tempo as Leonora’s resistance broke. Malachi Barker completed a swift team attack and became Charlestown’s second goal-scorer on the night in the 49th minute.

From there the end result was never in doubt as Charlestown’s relentless attacking forced the home side’s defence into making errors. Those errors resulted in two own goals from Tromayne Hercules and D’Lessando Vallenzuela in the 61st and 70th minute respectively.

In the dying moments of the game, Leonora managed to collect a consolation goal as the Charlestown defence switched off. Findly Miggins found the back of the net in the 78th minute to put his team on the scoresheet and breathe some life back into the home crowd.

With this win, Charlestown booked a potentially mouth-watering round of 16 clash with West Ruimveldt tomorrow.

Caption: L-R: Charlestown Secondary’s Andrew Carto & Malachi Barker helped their side into the Round of 16 stage with a goal apiece as they beat Leonora Secondary 4-1