Victory for Strand youths
THE Showgrounds was host to the underage soccer finals over a busy weekend and there was double joy for Strand Celtic.
The Strand Girls claimed the U- 16 Title at the Showgrounds on Friday in a deserved win over Yeats Utd. While in the U1 Boys Cup final, Strand defeated Ballisodare United 2- 1.
The Strand girls took the game to Yeats from the off and playing some lovely flowing football and were unlucky not take the lead on a number of occasions. However Yeats were going to make a game of it and took the lead against the run of play midway through the first half. Through to form though the Strand Girls didn’t panic and stuck to their task taking the ball down and playing some lovely football pushing hard for an equaliser.
It didn’t take long when Sorcha Reddy took control of the ball in the middle of the park and smashed a high shot over the head of the Yeats’ keeper and into the back of the net to restore parity. The sides went in at the break level at 1- 1 after a great display for Girls football which the crowd were enjoying immensely. After the restart Yeats started applying more pressure to Strand’s defence, playing in some high balls that were being capably dealt with by the well organised defence and try as they liked they were not to breach it. Strand again started to take control and in some sweeping attacking moves using the full width of the big Showgrounds pitch were causing all sorts of problems for the Yeats’ defence. This was what paid off midway through the half after a corner from the right that was not fully cleared, up popped Megan Masterson to hammer the ball to the back of the Yeats ’ net much to the joy of the Strand supporters. The game flowed from end to end and indeed there were chances at both ends after this but with legs tiring there was to be no further addition to the scoreline and with the final whistle going it was Strand who were victorious and lifted the Cup to bring it back to Strand and bring to an end a successful 2017 season. Well done to Yeats on reaching the decider of high standard football.