Anne8217;s, Stanislaus in final

St Anne8217;s, riding on a second-half blitz of three goals, defeated hosts St Andrew8217;s in the other semi-final.

Bosco, boasting of a great mid-field, which had players like Girish Pimpale, Shahnawaz Choudhary and Keegan Gonsalves, looked out of sorts today. Maybe, the slow nature of the game had something to do with it. But the trio were not as effective as they were in the Inter-schools final when they beat St Anne8217;s 3-1.

The only goal St Stanislaus scored came in the 10th minute through Delano D8217;Souza. But there were other opportunities in the second half after a rather tame first half.

St Stanislaus seemed effective in botching up Bosco8217;s mid-field, mainly because they cut off passes to Girish, Keegan and Shahnawaz. And they had their own players who impressed.

Little Kyle Mascarenhas and Jonathan Fernandes troubled the Bosco defence with their skill and penetration.

In the exciting second-half, Stanislaus had three chances which should have been goals. First, Kyle was thwarted by Bosco goalkeeper Adrian Lobo when he had the ball and an open goal in front. Then Jonathan8217;s swing completely failed to connect when the player had the ball in front of the goal. The last of the golden chances fell to Kyle again and he failed to trap a cross from the right when the goalkeeper had advanced.

Bosco themselves came close to scoring, very close when Rambahadur Devisingh hit the bar from a penalty corner after the ball had deflected off a defender8217;s stick, and then Deepak Manuel deflected wide from another such award.

The second game was not such a well-fought encounter, but it had goals. Again the hosts, St Andrew8217;s, played a slow game and St Anne8217;s found it tough to adjust to the lack of pace in the first half. But in the second half, two quick goals snuffed the fight out of St Andrew8217;s.

The first goal came in the 34th minute when Agnelo Fernandes deflected the ball in. Two minutes later, Sneden Pereira did the hard work on the right flank and crossed the ball for Alisdair Sequeira in the top of the box.

Alisdair took his time, set the ball, aimed his swing and scored with a powerful hit.

The final nail in Andrew8217;s coffin came in the 51st minute when Rohit Charles deflected a free-hit taken from outside the penalty area.

Andrew8217;s looked more than capable of holding Anne8217;s goalless. What they lacked was a good forward on the left. All their attacks were from the right and the industrious Sandeep Patellia did more than his share of work.

One of his blistering runs nearly gave them a goal when he snatched the ball on the right, cut in towards the centre, beating a couple of defenders on the way before his hit, which cannoned off the goalkeeper, rolled past the sidelines.