For a championship decider, the match lived up to its billing with Tafuna coming out the stronger team before Leone took over in the second half.
Tafuna’s first goal came from the penalty spot with Dion Ott putting the favourites ahead just five minutes into the match. The Warriors doubled their lead before the break when right back Peter Ng Lam cleared the ball from deep and the ball took a favourable bounce to miss everyone and hit the back of the net.
The Lions needed a second-half comeback and that’s what they achieved with a penalty goal to Risati Mapu just after halftime.
Ryan Petaia, a member of the Lions’ junior varsity championship squad and projected to be the MVP of that division, was moved up to the varsity team for the championship game and had made his entrance late in the first half.
The youngster delivered, tapping in the Lions second goal to make it 2-2 with five minutes to go in the match. But it was the top seeds Tafuna who held their nerve to win the penalty shootout 4-2 and claim the title.
Iuli Alex Godinet, President of the Football Federation American Samoa, thanked the Department of Education, the Athletics Department and high schools for allowing the association to partner with them in organizing the elementary and high school boys and girls’ leagues.
“It is great seeing our sport being played in these two levels of education, elementary and high school,” Iuli pointed out. “And it is from these competitions that we will continue to feed our association with national team players.”
Last year the girls’ varsity competition was used to select players for an OFC U-20 Women’s Championship that was held in January 2010. The make up of that team was 80percent high school players.
FFAS has aspirations of sending a boys’ team to the OFC U-20 Championship scheduled to take place in January 2011 in New Zealand. The technical department has jotted down a large number of players from the high school competition that it will invite for trials in the near future.
Story and photo courtesy FFAS Media
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