Stanislaus rally to beat Bosco

Derick Lewis of St Stanislaus (right) and Don Bosco's (Borivli) Naidu Aarush vie for the ball Pic/Suresh Karkera

St Stanislaus (Bandra) played with tremendous confidence as they recovered from a first half 0-1 deficit to overcome Don Bosco (Borivli) 2-1 in an absorbing encounter of the Mumbai Schools Sports Association-organised boys' U-16 Ahmed Sailor knockout inter-school football tie at Azad Maidan yesterday.

Both teams played a pleasing brand of attacking football with no dull moment throughout. The Borivli boys grabbed the initiative with an early strike from a snap effort by Raul Almeida in the sixth minute. Raul worked his way down the left flank and unleashed a long-ranger for 1-0.

Stung by the setback, the Bandra lads began to apply pressure and missed a couple of sitters besides twice being denied by the framework - Joshua D'Souza and Aaron Joseph, both hitting the horizontal bar. Stanislaus got the four minutes into the second half. Forward Zubair Kharbari charged down the left and sent in a low cross to provide Joy D'Sa a simple tap in from close. Stanislaus then went all out for the winner and midfielder Anish Khaire got it from a direct free-kick in the 39th minute.

SVKM, Evangelist in final
Meanwhile, SVKM International (Vile Parle) and St John the Evangelist (Andheri) advanced to the boys U-16 Div-IV final yesterday. In the semis, SVKM, riding on Ansh Rathod's lone strike, beat Diamond Jubilee (Mazgaon 1-0), while St John beat Swami Vivekanand (Chembur) 2-0, with strikers Chris Fernandes and Hammad Shaikh scoring a goal each.

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