Sagitun evens series in football championship
Good evening I’m James Adderly and we certainly want to welcome you aboard for this ride on Sports Monday. Game 2 of the Regent Millennium Cup championship series took us to the Michael Ashcroft Stadium in Independence Saturday night, where Sagitun needed to win, to stave off elimination. After losing 2-zip to Grigamandala last weekend, Sagitun had no more room to maneuver.
So the team from the Banana Belt comes out looking for an early goal, only Bent Burgess can’t come up with the header. The hometeam shows total domination of the ballgame as they continue to press, when Derys Benavides tries to locate Burgess, but Stanley Reneau intervenes.
Some 21 minutes in, Hilberto Muschamp lines up behind this spotkick outside the 18 – it’s a ball Stanley Reneau should handle – he doesn’t and Sagitun goes up 1-zip. 16 minutes later, Bent Burgess pushes this past into the danger zone and the Dangriga defense allows it to roll through to Derys Benavides. His left foot bullet hands Sagitun a 2-zip lead.
Immediately into 2nd half Grigamandala looks for offense off this spotkick from Nelson Moss, but the ball sails over the crossbar. At the other end Burgess gets the opportunity to put his team ahead 3-zip only his launch is right at Reneau, who reels it in.
Still folks, the Dangriga offense just can’t get going today as exemplified by Francis Arzu on this play. The scoring opportunities seem to be the exclusively domain of Sagitun in today’s ballgame. Julio Valle gets his break, but misses the target. On the next play Bent Burgess aims at the far upright, but the groundshot inches outside the sticks.
Meanwhile Dangriga goes back to its best offensive option today -Nelson Moss and the spotkick- but this attempt is corralled by Darren Hinds. Grigamandala’s best opportunity to score comes off this miscue by the Sagitun defense, but obviously Lennox Mejia knows not what to with the pill.
Julio Valle of Sagitun also displays an inability to score today when he mis-fires from pointblank range at Stanley Reneau. And when the long whistle arrives, it brings a 2-zip win for Sagitun to tie the 3 game series at 1 a piece.
Hilberto Muschamp, Captain, Sagitun
“Well James, this is a very big win because we needed to win to force a 3 game. This is a very big win, we came out, we know we had to score something–we didn’t last week–and fortunately for us, we got on the scoreboard early and capitalized on another one and I think that was it to seal the deal.”
James Adderly
“That was a very powerful and very potent punch from outside. Tell us about that kick that gave Sagitun the 1-nil goal, courtesy of your boots.”
Hilberto Muschamp
“Well I have scored 5 goals this season and 5 of them came from spotkicks at that same range. I feel comfortable taking that shot, I went up and I’ve been kicking the ball good from the beginning of the game and kicking out the ball, so I felt comfortable, I stepped out and just slammed it home.”
James Adderly
“Looking at game 3 after this kind of performance, do you think you could repeat this kind of performance on an neutral field?”
Hilberto Muschamp
“James, you went to the game at Dangriga, we dominated them, we failed to score. If we can’t score, we’ll be in problems again Sunday. This team has always struggled on scoring a goal away from home. We need to get that behind us now and go into Belize City and try to get a goal. I think that if we get on the scoreboard in Belize City, we should be okay because we always dominate the game. Dangriga plays a running game, they are much stronger than us, we can’t stand up to them like that, but we play organized football. Once we stay in our pattern, play the game we are supposed to play, capitalize on our opportunity, we should be okay at MCC.”
The decisive game 3 comes to the MCC Grounds this Sunday where Grigamandala and Sagitun meets in a do or die situation. The winner takes the title and all the marbles of course.
In other football news, here are the results from play in National Amateur First Division competition sponsored by the Belize National Football Association. Undefeated Yabra dropped Lazio Jumex at Orange Walk 1-zip, Caribbean mashed up Toledo Mavericks 4-1 at Capital City, while Metro Stars and Griga Conquerors were forced to postpone due to inclement weather. In volleyball news, firms division, Christ Crusaders downed Bowen’s Lighthouse Lager 25-12, 25, 15. O.W. Music Centre overturned Barclay’s Eagles 25-18, 25-18. And in Male competition, Acros Scorpios stung Mirab 18-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-22.
