Lodge, Christianburg-Wismar look forward to Milo final

The curtains will come down on the seventh Milo Schools Football tournament on Sunday, April 14th. The final game could not be scripted better, with two of the front runners, Christianburg-Wismar and Lodge Secondary, slated to vie for the $500,000 first prize.

Both teams enjoyed wins on Sunday in the semifinals. While one was more thrilling than the other, both teams have worked consistently throughout the past months to earn their spot in the final.
When this publication caught up with the Captain of the Christianburg-Wismar team, Andre Mayers was thankful for his team’s win, even though it was by a slim 1-0 margin.
“We weren’t in top form, but we did well,” he explained.
Pointing out area that they need to work on, Mayers identified the defense, which seemed shaky at times, allowing their semifinal challengers Annandale Secondary one too many chances at the goal.

While the youngster could not exactly identify what they would be doing in preparation for the final, he noted that they would be looking closely at the winner of the other semifinal.
“We are going to watch the first half of the next semi game and see how the teams are playing, and train hard based on that,” he explained.
Nonetheless, Mayers was confident about his team’s chances going into the final.
“We just have to work on our togetherness, and we will win this tournament,” the Christianburg-Wismar captain said.
On the other hand, Lodge Secondary did their homework on their semifinal opponents, President’s College, and there is no doubt that they will do the same for the final. Explaining that the team watched videos of their challengers as part of their preparation, the team’s coach, Leon Bishop, explained that they based their game plan around that.
“The guys went out there and they executed well, and the results showed that they would have learned from their first group stage match,” he said.
Reflecting on Lodge’s last meeting with Christianburg-Wismar, when the Georgetown team went down 2-0 to the Linden boys, Bishop was quick to defend his team’s showing in that Guyoil/Tradewind Tankers match.
“If you were here you would have seen that it was a competitive match right down to the end. It was two basic errors that caused us the two free kicks that they scored,” Bishop stated passionately.
On that note, the team’s coach is equally confident that they can pull off a win when the teams meet again on Sunday.
“So we know that once we play to our potential and we are focused, keep the possession of the ball, we can do well against them,” Bishop stated.
The final of the Milo Football tournament will be played at the Ministry of Education Ground on April 14 at 17:00hrs. (Jemima Holmes)