September 24, 2012

Winning in Style

The Suba Lakers hosted arch rivals Kisumu Leeds United in the last match of the 1st leg of the FKF Division I league.  Both teams have struggled a little bit in the first leg and were battling to stay in the middle of the pack halfway through the season. 

There was a big crowd at Mbita High School to watch the home team play, and they stayed noisy for the entire 90 minutes.  The Lakers started well and created many chances early on, playing with good ball-control and taking charge of the match, but never finished.  Early in the 2nd half Dorothy Adhiambo created a chance resulting in a handball from Leeds.  Raisha Achieng converted the penalty kick to give the Lakers a 1-0 lead. 

After Kisumu Leeds equalized, the Lakers slowly regained control and pulled out the victory with a low line drive shot by Alicent Awuor.  The 2-1 victory was probably the best performance of the season from the Lakers up to this point as they demonstrated great ball possession and played like seasoned veterans. 

With the win, the Lakers now have 7 points on the season with 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses.  They are sitting in 5th place out of 7 teams at the halfway point, but are only 2 points out of third place. 

After the game, many of them returned to their high schools as we received word that the public school teacher strike had finally been called off, after 4 weeks.  When the 2nd leg of the season cranks up some of the high school girls will be able to continue playing while others will have to be replaced by some of our primary school players. 

September 16, 2012

Bad News and Good News

The bad  news is that almost all of our girls are not in school right now because the public school teachers in Kenya have gone on strike demanding more.  Term 3 was supposed to begin the first week of September, but it never started because of the strike.  The government and the teachers union still seem very far away from reaching an agreement.  It is only a 9 week term, and two of those weeks have already been lost.  Our 8th graders will be taking their National Exams in less than 2 months but are not able to adequately prepare for this big event in their life because there are no teachers!  Pray for them to be disciplined and focused to study on their own.

The good news is that most of the girls are back in Mbita and able to continue training with the club and playing in our league games.  The team travelled to Kendu Bay this weekend to play Victoria Football Club.  On a rainy day, the Lakers gave up a couple of goals in the first half including a penalty kick that was a questionable call.  They fought hard in the 2nd half and almost equalized, but came up short in the 2-0 loss on the rain-soaked field.

Next week they will play at home against Kisumu Leeds in the final match of 1st half of the season.  They are still positioned in middle of the league standings.    

September 3, 2012

Win, Lose or Draw


The Division One season continued this past weekend with a home match against Nyuki Starlets from Western Province.  In the first half 6th grader Lencer Adoyo scored the first goal for the Lakers, who still found themselves trailing at half-time 2-1.  In the second half Caren Akeyo scored a great header to even up the score and the game ended in a 2-2 draw.

The secondary girls will be returning to their boarding schools this week and the primary school girls will also be starting their last term of the year.  After a week off, the season will resume on September 15th. So far the Lakers have won 1, lost 2 and drawn 1.