Lakers Lead School to Region Championship

This past weekend, three Suba Lakers helped lead their secondary school to the Regional Championship!  Alicent Awuor, Raisha Achieng and Leah Ongojo were key members of the best secondary school team in the region this year. 

In their first year of secondary school at Jera in 2012, all three players contributed to a team that reached the Regional Finals.  In last year’s final they pulled ahead 2-0 in the 2^nd half on a goal from Alicent, but they couldn’t hang on in the dying moments as they allowed two goals and eventually lost on post-match penalty kicks to a strong Koballa Secondary School team that also included a Suba Laker player.  They were heart-broken to not reach their goal of making Nationals in Mombasa.

This year, they returned every one of their key players, except for one who graduated last year.  They have been determined to make amends for the gut-wrenching end to last season.  They have trained hard from the first day of school in January and played a very challenging pre-season schedule to prepare them.  With a glimmer in their eyes, they romped through Zonal, District and County tournaments beating teams by an average of 5-6 goals a game, and sometimes beating teams by more than 10 goals!

In the Regional Tournament they won their first match 12-0 and then won their 2^nd preliminary match against one of the tournament favorites 4-0.  In the quarter-finals they sent Moi Girls Secondary School Sindo home with a 2-0 loss.

The semi-finals saw a rematch of last year’s championship game between Kobala and Jera.  Last year’s loss was still fresh in the Jera players’ minds.  Unfortunately, 4 minutes into the game, Alicent Awuor injured her knee and was carried off the field.  Jera quickly regrouped and scored a few minutes later on a long free kick, and before anyone knew what happened Kobala drew even with a perfectly timed goal.  Jera though proved too strong over the long haul and ended up with a convincing 4-1 victory to set up another finals appearance. 

The following day they had a relatively easy time in the Finals putting away Nyakach 2-0 to win the championship and book their tickets to the National Finals in Embu in early August.  Jera has dominated the Lake Region, winning the Regional Girls Football Title 13 of the last 17 years. 

Before her injury, Alicent was playing very well upfront scoring many goals and creating numerous chances for her teammates.  We hope she will be healthy enough to play at Nationals in a couple weeks.  As the stopper, Leah Ongojo anchored a defense that only allowed 1 goal in five matches.  Raisha provided a strong presence as a defensive mid-fielder, supplying balls up front to Jera’s talented attackers. 

Besides these three players, there were 7 other Suba Lakers playing for different teams, including 4  whose teams finished in the top 4 in the Region. 

Jera has a strong and experienced team that will challenge for the National Trophy.  The top three teams at Nationals will get the opportunity to represent Kenya in the East African games in Uganda next month.   

On the Path to a Championship

Ten Suba Lakers are competing with their secondary schools for the Lake Region Championship, and with it, the opportunity to take their school’s team to Nationals. The Lake Region Tournament began today (Thursday) in Ambira High School, near Siaya Town and will be running for the next four days, culminating with the Championship Game Sunday morning, July 21st.

Caren Akeyo plays midfield for Kobala Secondary School who are the defending Regional Champions and finished 4th place in Nationals last year. Their team  has the heart of a champion, and want to prove that last year was no fluke.

Last year’s runner’s up was Jera Secondary School. Three Suba Lakers who are in their 2nd year of high school help to solidify a strong team. Leah Awuor in the backline, Raisha Achieng in the mid-field and Alicent Awuor up front. In the 2012 finals, they gave up a 2-0 lead to lose on post-match penalty kicks. With almost the entire team returning, they are seeking revenge for last year’s let down. Up to this point, they have shown no mercy to their opponents on their march back to the Regionals.

The third place team from last year was Gekomoni Secondary from Nyamira County. They also have three Suba Lakers who are all in their 3rd year of high school. Eliva Awuor is one of the outstanding goalkeepers in the region, Belinda Awuor is a strong back-liner while Judith Mayor is a dependable utility player. They have also steamrolled their way to the Regional Tournament, putting up big winning margins in all of their qualifiers.

Irine Achieng, Sharon Bismark and Christine Jael play for Moi Girls Secondary School- Sindo. They were the surprise champs from Homa Bay County, upsetting the defending champs, and are currently riding a hot streak as they open the Regional Tournament.

All of these girls come from around this area; including 4 from Rusinga Island, 1 from Mfangano Island, and the other five from around Mbita town. They have all trained and played with the Suba Lakers for many years, including at least two years in primary school before moving on to secondary school.

We are proud that so many of our girls will get the chance to play at this level with their school teams. It is a testimony to our club’s ability to find the good young talent from around Mbita and develop their talents so that they can shine as they mature into young women.

Only one team will proceed from the Lake Region to go to Nationals, but we are pretty sure they will have at least 1 Suba Laker on that team!

Primary School Games

The Suba Laker Primary School girls have been dazzling and exciting fans all across the western part of Kenya for the past few weeks.  In primary schools, the games are like all-star games because the players move through about 7 levels where they play games and at the end of that tournament, the best players are selected to move on to the next level.  At pretty much all the levels are girls have played they haven't allowed any goals and the only matches they have lost were due to post-match penalty shootouts (of which we need to do a lot of work on).  And at each level, the crowds enjoyed watching the "team game" of our girls as they passed, worked together and displayed their high skill level.  Our primary girls are still young and small in stature, but know how to play the game of soccer the right way.   

The Homa Bay County team mainly consisted of Suba Lakers from Mbita District reached all the way to the finals of the Provencal Tournament and played a great game against the host county Kisumu.  With all of the fans against us, our girls dominated the game and created numerous chances to score, but never broke through.  In the end, it came down to penalty kicks which gave Kisumu the title. 

Fortunately, 6 players from our team were selected to go to Nationals, including 4 Suba Lakers.  Goalkeeper Lillian Awuor will go for the first time, Winny Akinyi and Teresa Atieno will be going for the 2nd time and defender Lavenda Achieng will go for the 3rd time.  It is a huge honor to be regarded as one of the best primary school players in the nation.  We wish them the best of luck as they represent the Lake Region in the games set to take place next week. 

Coca Cola

The Under 15 version of Suba Lakers kicked off the Coca Cola Tournament with a 3-0 win over Kuria Ladies.  The Coca Cola Tournament is being stages in different branches all over Kenya and several other countries in Africa.  The winning boys and girls teams from the branch levels will move on to the Provencal level and then National level.  The National winners will have the opportunity to travel to South Africa to face other National winners from the across the continent. 

Three years ago the Suba Lakers won the branch and reached all the way up to the semifinals of the Province.  In their first game of this campaign the 12, 13 and 14 year old girls dominated their first match from start to finish, making a strong statement to the other teams watching that they are once again the team to beat.  Winny Akinyi and Lenser Adoyo both scored goals in the first half and the defense anchored by Cynthia, Florence, Jacinta and Sisk Verah didn't give the Kuria Ladies any good chances to score past Goalkeeper Lillian Awuor.

In the 2nd half, the Suba Lakers continued their dominance and the youngest and smallest player on the field, 12 year old Brenda June, netted the teams third and final goal.  Brenda was selected by Coca Cola as the player of the match. 

It was a good beginning for the Lakers.  This first game was played in Rongo.  They will continue with more Coca Cola games on May 25th in Homa Bay.

      

Coming Together

The Primary and Secondary girls reported for a full-day Suba Lakers training session on Friday, April 12^th. The morning started out with heavy rains until nearly 10am which delayed many girls traveling to the Mbita Primary School football pitch. By the afternoon, over 30 girls were in attendance. They each brought with them a copy of their Term 1 report cards. Even though

Suba Lakers is a football club, the core values are centered on encouraging teenage girls to stay in school and receive a quality education. The club strives to challenge the girls to do their best both on the football pitch and in the classroom. Damaris, a Form 2 (10^th grade) student at Bishop Okullu Magare Girls Secondary School, blew us away with her grades. She finished the term as the 2^nd Best Girl out of 85 students in her class! We’re so proud of her!

A YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Team helped out with some exciting exercises and soccer drills during the morning session. The girls enjoyed training with some new activities but were quick to admit that they (the YWAM team) weren't great football players. These girls are serious about their football!

One of the YWAM team members shared his testimony of his previous life as a drug addict and growing up with parents who were both drug addicts and never fully present during his childhood, he could relate to many of the girls’ difficult home situations. His journey of how he grew to know God and the power of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection was powerful.

During lunch at Coach Joe’s house they enjoyed getting to know Daneen, Joe’s fiancée. Many of the girls have been bugging Joe for many years about when he would choose a wife and get married! They were all smiles and giggles finally seeing Joe’s future wife in person! Daneen is looking forward to being a part of the Suba Lakers as a mentor.

The girls also watched an exciting Athletes In Action video called “Passion And Power: Champions of Women’s Sports”. The video followed a number of world-champion female athletes and their journey of having passion for their sport, while also having a passion for Jesus and ensuring their strength and power comes from the Lord and not themselves. The girls were amazed to see so many different sports they didn’t know about like the luge, speed skating, and the uneven parallel bars in gymnastics. They also loved seeing their countrywoman, Catherine Nderebe, who is an Olympic Marathon medalist as well as the first Kenyan female to win the Boston Marathon.

Back at the field, it was game time. The girls played a match between the primary school girls and secondary school girls. While the secondary school girls are older and have more experience, many are off at boarding schools and get little training time. Whereas most of the primary girls live in and around Mbita and are able to train and practice together more frequently. The Primary girls squashed the secondary girls 3-0. Proof that quality training and youthful exuberance can overcome age and experience!

It was a great day!

More Than Just Playing

Last weekend the Suba Laker Primary girls trained and camped together for 3 days.  It was a great weekend for many reasons. 

On the field they had some intense practice sessions in which the girls worked so hard and showed much improvement, and they also studied the film of the USA women's soccer victory over Canada in the semifinals of last year's Olympics.  Off the field, they had three very good study times in which they worked together in groups concentrating on different subjects.  On Sunday morning, Teacher Rozeline shared with them from John 3 about the incredible love of God.  After the last practice session Madam Kezia came and shared with the girls about how to make good choices in their lives.  There were some writing activities involved and a lot of discussion. 

The 19 girls who reported benefitted much from the weekend of activities.  Because all of the schools in the country will be having a long half-term due to the upcoming elections, the secondary girls and some selected primary girls will be training in the mornings starting on March 1 for about 10 days.  It will be a good time to see their conditioning and skill level and work on some areas that need improvement, on and off the field. 

Little Champs

This past weekend the Suba Lakers primary girls participated in the Homa Bay High School BUOP Open Invitational Tournament.  There were secondary schools, teacher training colleges and technical training institutes from different parts of the country competing in many different sports. We were the only one with primary school girls.  There were tons of boys football teams, but only 7 girls football teams.  Since all of our secondary girls are away in boarding schools, we played with our primary school girls and 2 girls that have already finished secondary school.  In fact most of our girls were in 6th and 7th grade and competing against high school and college students.

In the first match we eased through a 1-0 victory over Mawego Girls on a goal by Winny Akinyi.  In the second match we pulled off a 2-0 victory over Ogande Girls with goals by Primerose and Winny.  We emerged 1st place in our pool and proceeded directly to the finals on Sunday afternoon.  We were pitted against Ogari Girls from Migori.  They had also won all of their matches and were a strong team.  We faced off on the main football pitch with thousands of people milling around.  Our opponent might have overlooked us a little... literally.  Every player on the team was at least a head taller than our younger girls.  Our girls were unfazed by the size difference and took it to them from the opening kick, creating several scoring chances before the smallest player on the field gave us a lead from a stunning goal taken outside the box.  When the rebound rolled out to her, Brenda June kicked it with every ounce of strength in her tiny frame and put it right above the goalkeeper's reach.  And the team celebrated enthusiastically.  The Lakers continued to dominate ball possession and our opponents had very few opportunities to get close to our goal.  The game ended 1-0 and the Suba Lakers were able to take home the trophy!