Santa Rosa come from behind to clinch 1st Milo title

Story and photos by Jemima Holmes

Pandemonium broke out on Sunday night when a Santa Rosa player sporting the number 20 jersey walked up to the penalty mark and successfully executed his team’s fifth penalty. That decisive strike meant that Santa Rosa had bested former three-time Milo schools’ football champions Chase’s Academic Foundation in only their first outing in the competition.

The spraying beverages and smiling faces that ran giddily onto the Ministry of Education (MoE) Ground’s football pitch were testaments to the hundreds of spectators who turned out on Sunday night to witness what was ‘a game fit for a final’.

The colours on the pitch [light and dark blue] intriguingly resembled the team colours in the enthralling World Cup 2022 final that was witnessed last December. Oddly enough, even the 3-3 score at the end of regulation and extra time was the same, but the Region One (Barima-Waini) team ensured that this time, it was the darker blues who would prevail.
The fascinating tale of Santa Rosa’s spirited comeback in the wildly-entertaining final all started with two quickfire goals from Chase’s Academy in the first half.
It was Chase’s Captain, Seon Cato, who executed a fine header for the first goal in the 22nd minute, while Matrim Martin followed up with a simple tap-in in the 24th for Chase’s two-goal advantage.

The score remained the same until the second half, where Santa Rosa seemingly returned with a vengeance. Their Captain, Roy Vansluytman finally broke the ice in the 50th minute with a well-placed free kick. Then, in the 73rd minute, Vansluytman, the eventual Most Valuable Player (MVP), made it a 2-2 game with a header.
Much to the delight of the boisterous fans, the scores remained locked until the 83rd minute, when Chase’s Justin Alcindor converted a set piece for their third goal. However, their lead did not last for long. Just a minute later, Santa Rosa’s Nelson Lucas capitalised on the goalkeeper’s misjudgement of an incoming shot to level the scores again.
When extra time bore no fruit, the game went down to penalties, from which Santa Rosa prevailed 5-3.
Also gracing the Milo final was Housing and Water Minister Colin Croal , who was rather impressed with what he witnessed.
“Before I talk about the finalists, I think we need to start off by saying and giving a big round of applause for football, because the winner for this tournament is actually football in Guyana,” the Minister shared in brief remarks.

Croal went on to add, “And so, what we’ve learnt over the last few weeks is that if opportunity is created equally for everyone, it doesn’t matter where you come from, you will find persons being able to compete and I want to use that as an instrument and a motivation.”
Meanwhile, in the third-place playoff, Carmel Secondary easily overcame Mackenzie High 3-0. Goals from Samuel Ferguson, Shem James, and Ian Daniels in the 34th, 46th and 85th minutes respectively did the trick for Carmel.
When it came to individual prizes, Carmel’s Ian Daniels was the tournament’s highest goal scorer with 13 goals from 7 games. Santa Rosa’s Enrique Williams and Roy Vansluytman were named best goalkeeper and MVP respectively. The Region One outfit was adjudged the most disciplined team in the tournament.
The ninth edition of the tournament was supported by Massy Distribution through the Nestle Milo brand; Guyana Industrial Minerals Inc (GINMIN); General Equipment Guyana (Genequip) and MVP Sports.