CDJ Ribandar lift Ilhas Zone title

CDJ Ribandar lift Ilhas Zone title
HERALD CORRESPONDENT
MERCES, APRIL 25
Despite being a man short for most of the time, CDJ Ribandar easily accounted for Carambolim SC 5-1 to win the Ilhas Zone in the first U-16 Coca-Cola Celebration Cup at Santa Cruz school ground on Sunday.
CDJ went into an early lead with Adrian Menezes hoodwinking the Carambolim defence and scoring past a stranded Dayesh Murgaonkar. Then, Keegan Bast doubled the lead for CDJ with his rasping drive as Carambolim goalie Dayesh could only watch in awe.
CDJ’s Aldair Figueiredo was then given the marching orders for his second booking of the match, which handed Carambolim a slight advantage.
Immediately, Carambolim should have equalized, but CDJ’s goalie Jonathan George effected an acrobatic save off Geovin’s free kick to keep the score 2-0 in favour of his side.
 Carambolim, despite having a numerial advantage as Ribandar were a man short, could not translate their advantage into goals and CDJ continued to dominate the proceedings.
Crossing over, Carambolim had a charmed life as Kashyap Keni’s try hit the post and rebounded into play.
And, just when it appeared to be a lost cause for Carambolim, Vinod Murgaonkar reduced the margin to give his side some chance of catching up with CDJ.
However, the calm, cool and collected CDJ side upped the tempo and pumped in another three goals to take the match away from Carambolim. First, Keegan Bast scored to make it 3-1 and then Adrian Menezes scored twice to complete his hat-trick, to give CDJ a resounding 5-1 win.
Earlier, in the first semi-final CDJ Ribandar scored an emphatic 8-1 win over Piedade Youth Association. Adrian Menezes opened the scoring for CDJ, which, however, was nullified by PYA’s Joel Correia off a penalty kick.
Then, it was one-way traffic for CDJ as they pumped in another seven goals. Adrian Menezes scored two more goals to complete his hat-trick, Dario Rodrigues too scored his hat-trick and Keegan Bast and Kunal Shetty scored one goal apiece, to complete the rout.
The second semi-final turned out to be the best match of the day as Carambolim pipped Don Bosco Oratory 2-1. However, it was Don Bosco Oratory who went into the lead through Pierre Fernandes. But, Geovin and Myron Cardozo found the net for Carambolim SC to score a comeback win against DBO.