Erei and BOCA will meet in RFG Cup finals
Good evening, I?m James Adderley and we certainly want to welcome you aboard for this ride that we call Sports Monday. The two finalists to the 2006 RFG Cup Tournament emerged over the weekend as both teams going into game two with a W were able to prevail on goal aggregate.
So after a season that has seen five months, covered some five districts and started with fourteen of the best football teams in this nation, we?re now down to the final two.
At the M.C.C. Grounds New Site Erei of Dangriga with a commanding two-goal lead looks to take out F.C. Belize at the M.C.C. Grounds to earn one of the two tickets to the big dance.
Nevertheless, it?s the visiting team that looks threatening in the early moments when Harrison Roches fires this wicked left foot that could have done damage had the ball not veer off course.
We will say though the New Site Erei keeper Woodrow West does look a bit shaky on this move, but good defence rescues him.
At the other end, Darwin Castillo doesn?t seem to be sure which foot to fire with, so he squanders a very good look at goal.
Hey Woodrow, can I just say this ain?t no confidence boosters for sure. F.C. Belize then gets its turn to grab the lead off this launch from Tyrone Muschamp, but it?s a couple inches too high.
New Site responds with this shot on top the eighteen by Kafu Roches, and at the half we do have a scoreless ballgame.
Folks we?re some six minutes into second half when Tyrone Muschamp centres into the danger zone. Glen Martinez tries to head the ball out; instead he commits the dreaded auto-goal as F.C. Belize takes a 1-zip lead.
Dangriga tries to equalise off this shot from Lennox Castillo, but Elroy Rowley intervenes successfully.
Meanwhile, it looks like the visitors will tie the ballgame on this play, but John Chimilio simply can?t keep the pill down. At the other end, Clifford Usher goes to the tick shot, but he can?t get enough on the ball to make it potent.
For certain, F.C. Belize knows they need another goal right about now and Jerome Thomas should have helped his team with a conversion right about here.
Talk about an ugly first touch people, Ryan Simpson squanders the best opportunity to tie the ballgame for New Site Erei, but F.C. Belize goes on to post the 1-zip big W. Unfortunately, it can only be viewed as a Pyrrhic Victory as New Site Erei moves on a goal aggregate of 2-1. it?s hard but it?s there and it means bye-bye F.C. Belize.
In the other semi-final showdown, BOCA F.C. was able to hold the Seahawks to a scoreless draw out at the island yesterday and therefore they take the series 1-zip on aggregate.
The finals for the RFG Tournament 2006 gets off this Saturday twenty-first of January as New Site Erei heads to the Michael Ashcroft Stadium for a date with big bad BOCA.
Of course game two of this series is scheduled for the Carl Ramos Stadium on the twenty-ninth of January at four p.m., so keep those dates in mind.
Turning to the cycling scene, M and M Engineering presents the fourth edition of the Tour de Belize, a nine-stage tour that covers five hundred and twenty-five miles in nine days. The action begins on February fourth and extends to February twelfth. Roque Matus is the man in charge.
Roque Matus, Organiser, Tour de Belize
?This is the first year that we are having the tour for nine days. We had it six days the year before. Also, this is the first year we have international riders, and unlike what we have done in the past, just having amateur riders, we will be able to have professional riders also. So we?re talking about Tour de France calibre riders in this M and M Engineering Tour.?
?What happens, from my experience of racing many years in different countries, I said that Belize needed a tour so that we Belizeans can appreciate stiff international competition over nine days, because we don?t tend to learn a lot in a one-day race, but over nine days, the Belizeans guys, eighty of them or so which will be riding will be able to learn a lot more than in a one-day event.?
?We have the team from Guatemala, which is always a force; they ride a lot of international events. We have teams from the United States, we have at least two teams confirmed Incap Sports and another team which will be a mixture of professional and amateur cyclists. We have a team from Mexico and then we have individual riders who will be riding from Nicaragua, from El Salvador and from Jamaica.?
?The first stage is the fourth of February. It starts in Orange Walk and we?ll be racing to Corozal, back to Orange Walk. Then on Sunday, we go to Belmopan and then mainly in the week we stay around Belize area. Then the final showdown will be the Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is a very, very difficult stage; it?s gonna be three laps on the Hummingbird Highway, climbing the biggest hills of Belize. Then the grand finale on Sunday will be two laps around the Boom circuit, which will be eighty miles.?
In other cycling news, let?s head to the finish of Sunday?s Santino Bike Club race which features riders thirty-eight years and over and others invited by the club. Around mile nine on the Western Highway John Burns broke out of the pack and here he is taking top honours in the fifty-mile ride. Now here is the field sprint for second place and can you believe it, Santino Castillo edges out a former cycling superstar, Andrew Smiling. I guess life is stranger than fiction indeed.
That?s it for now. We invite you back same time, same place next week. Jah over all, I?m James Adderley.
