New Era Entertainment/Cell Smart Mohamed’s Enterprise Futsal Tournament 3…
– 13 year old sinks Mile Spot
By Romario Samaroo
The hype of the 3rd annual New Era Entertainment Cell Smart Mohamed’s Enterprise Futsal tournament continues to grow as the largest turnout for the tournament to date witnessed some shocking twists in the five games at the McKenzie Sports Club Hard Court, Linden on Monday night.
Hustlers (black) played intelligent futsal to ‘dull’ Axe’s advance on MondayAllan Rene scored four crucial goals in the closing minute of the game
After being pushed back for two consecutive days, the best was saved for last as the Silvertown All Stars went up against a much younger Trendsetters side.
If the age old debate of youth versus experience was to be settled, it was this match that laid the debate to rest with Silvertown’s experience getting the better of Trendsetters in the 7-6 final match.
The match though by the score looked like a close contest but was far from it as the first half saw Trendsetters racing past Silvertown 2-0. The speed and skill of Kevin Gittens were too much for the older men to counter and Gittens pierced the All Star’s goalkeeper in the 6th and 11th minute (6’ and 11’).
Silvertown seemed to be down and out in the second half but kept on believing that they could make a comeback into the match even as Kwesi Johnson and Delon Luke sent two more goals whistling past their goalkeeper in the 26’ and 27’ respectively to have the score 4-0 way into the second half.
Marlon Bishop provided some amount of hope as he capitalized on a blunder by the Trendsetter goalkeeper to score twice inside three minutes (29’ and 31’) and Allan Rene (33’) to reduce the 4-0 deficit down to 4-3 but Leo Ross showed that Trendsetters could do no wrong as he scored in the 35’ to have the score 5-3 and Bentak Jamal seemed to have sealed his team’s quarter final berth in the knock out competition when he scored in the 39’ leaving Silvertown stranded on 6-3.
However, all was not lost. Rene came to the rescue of Silvertown as he had did in last year’s competition where he blasted a massive nine goals in one match, to score four goals within the last minute. Rene quickly caught a tired trendsetter goalkeeper limping and sunk two goals to the back of the net inside 10 seconds to bring life back into the game and returned to stop the crowd in their tracks as he equalised the match before a time out was called leaving 15 seconds on the clock and one goal needed to win against a clearly stunned trendsetters. Rene quickly gathered and within the blink of an eye fans saw one of the most hard fought games of the tournament truly adding credence to the old saying “it is not over until the fat lady sings.”
On the other hand, Team Empire was lead surprisingly by the likes of a 13 year old talent, Jermain Masson who produced four goals against a skilled Mile Spot to see his team conquer the match 10-3.
The match had barely started and Empire was already one up in the 1’ and quickly added another in the 2’ thanks to Curt Johnson and Kevin Beaton respectively. Kalvin Batson showed that Mile Spot were not going to be a walk over and replied with the first goal for his side in the 14’ but Masson scored in the 19’ and 20’ to send a message over to Mile Spot that they were not intimidated.
In the second half, Batson once more found the back of the net in the 22’ leading to a barrage of goals in the final minute of play beginning with Batson’s hat trick in the 30’. Devon Tuder scored Mile Spot’s second goal in the 30’ to have the score stand 6-3. Batson then replied one minute later while Trenton Lashley sent one blasting past Mile Spot’s defence with the score now 7-3. Masson and Lashey score once more (32’ and 34’ respectively) prior to 13 year old form two student’s helmet trick in the 38’ to send his team into the next round.
In the other matches, Axe was not sharp enough to match with Hustlers suffering a 2-9 defeat. Three goals from Donavon Francis (4’, 19’ and 30’), doubles from Jermain Scotland (10’and11’) and Devin London (39’ and 40’) as well as one a piece foe Deon Charton (18’) and Sean Brawlay (35’) got the job done for Hustlers.
Plantain and Cheese served up a convincing 7-2 beating to East Side Jammers as Al Chester scored four times (29’, 35’, 36’, 39’) to knock the Jammers out. Meanwhile Town Cars raced into a world of trouble when they face Coomacka United losing 3-7. The Daw brothers, Lorrick (9’and 10’) and Kevin (16’, 27’and 29’) were the architects of the defeat.
The action continues on the same hard court on Friday and Saturday as the contest head into the next round. The first prize is $400,000 along with trophies and replicas, up by $100,000 from last year. The second placed team will claim $150,000 and trophy, third $75,000 and trophy and fourth place will collect a trophy. Other prizes are on offer for the MVP, Best goalkeeper and Best young player.
