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Zilla Parishad under-17 girls football: It’s all merry for St Mary’s
After winning Subroto Cup earlier this month, St Mary’s beat Amanora School 4-0 in the final.
After winning the city-level phase of the Subroto Cup earlier this month, St Mary’s emerged victorious in the final of the Zilla Parishad under-17 Girls’ Football Tournament 2019, after routing Amanora School 4-0, at the Dobarwadi Ground, on Thursday.
St Mary’s were on the attack from the first minute. A confident start saw the girls in white bombard the Amanora School defence with consecutive attacks. Inside the opening five minutes of the game, Mary’s had three extremely good chances to take the lead, but astonishingly, all the efforts scuffed. The first opportunity fell to midfielder and top scorer of the tournament, Arianna Gadhoke, who was put clean through by Urvi Salunkhe, but the midfielder buried her effort on the wrong side of the post. Shortly after that miss, Aditi Ramkumar was presented with a glorious opportunity. The striker received the ball right in-front of goal, but failed to control it and the ball eventually ended up behind the goal.
With their poaching being ineffective, St Mary’s tried their luck from a distance. Ramkumar, struck the ball cleanly from the edge of the penalty area, as the ball flew past a helpless goalkeeper and Mary’s were finally in the lead and in complete command of the game.
Another wave of attack from Mary’s produced a couple of good saves from Amanora School’s keeper Shravani Mali. Amanora tried to launch a counter as their striker Ritika Singh dribbled past a couple of opponents, but was eventually dispossessed by Mary’s Ahurah Wadhwa.
While the Amanora defence was busy marking the strikers of St Mary’s, Aura Wadhwa caught everyone off-guard with her strike from the edge of the penalty area. Wadhwa, who had successfully stopped an Amanora counter-attack, now gave Mary’s a 2-0 lead, as her shot flew over every player in the box, including the goalkeeper and landed in the back of the net.
The second goal seemed to have knocked the air out of Amanora, as signs of complacency started creeping into the back-line. The Amanora School was now defending with all 10 players behind the ball, in their own penalty area. Poor distribution from the Amanora keeper Shravani Mali caught her own players off-guard and out of position. Ramkumar struck a lobbed shot towards the keeper, which should have been caught, but instead, Mali spilled the ball right in the path of Arianna Gadhoke. The striker was right in-front of goal and made no mistake in slotting the ball into an empty net to give Mary’s a convincing 3-0 lead at the midway point of the game.
In the second half, a clean game saw no more than three fouls being committed. The last goal of the game came in the final minutes. Anusha Rabadiya received the ball on the edge of the penalty area, and she curled her effort into the right side of the goal, giving Mary’s a well-deserved 4-0 lead.
Aayushi Sawant, defender, Amanora School, said, “ It was an unfortunate result and I am sad. But, this is the first time we have reached the finals of this tournament, and that makes me and the team very happy. All my teammates have worked really hard and the coordination amongst our team has been extremely good, which is why I believe we reached the final. I am not happy with the result, but I am happy with the progress we have made as a team.”
Arianna Gadhoke (HT Player of the Tournament - St. Mary’s) said, “St Mary’s lost in the final of this tournament last year, and we were not expecting such a comfortable win this time. I have not scored a lot of goals before, so ending up as this tournament’s top-scorer is something that makes me really proud and I hope to keep on learning and improving.”
