By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
Lion Heart’s Tavoy Thomas, left, controls the ball against Islanders defender, Ragel Noel
Lion Heart rode Ceejay Lampart’s first half brace and an insurance second half goal, clamped down on defense to hand Islanders their first loss of the season, during Sunday night’s 3-0 victory at the A. O. Shirley Grounds, as both teams head into the Christmas break with identical 8-1-1 records and 25 points respectively.
Lampart scored in the 35th minute, giving Lion Heart the early lead then added a second goal two minutes into stoppage time, for a 2-0 lead at the half. Glen St. John scored from inside the box in the 71st to seal the 3-0 victory.
“From the start, I saw we had this game, reason being, I noticed they didn’t have a middle. It was weak and the defense flimsy, so we took advantage of that,” Lion Heart’s Coach Lenroy “Left” Henry told Island Sun Sports. “Two goals came late in the first half and I was pleased with it, but all in all, both teams are playing well, but just that they couldn’t manage us. They had no shots at goal in the first half so compliments the defense on that.”
Islanders coach Fitzroy Daly said it was one of ‘those days’ and that they were plagued by a ‘lot of events.’ “We didn’t start our strongest team today. Some of our players are unavailable but it’s all in the game. When we fail to do the right stuff, things like this will happen,” he said. “I was missing a few middle men. My entire middle is out (for) reasons that are very crazy, but it’s just football. We’re still on top of the table in terms of goal difference. I’m not too worried about his result. This result just shows me that we have a lot more work to do.”
After battling to a 0-0 half, Ciaran Johnson scored from inside the box in the 86th as the Wolues (6-0-3, 18 points) leaped frogged the Rebels, (5-2-3, 17 points) for a hard fought 1-0 victory.
Coach Levi James described the game as being ‘satisfying.’ “We got the three points and that’s all that counts,” he said. “We decided to come back with the same team from last week (handing the Panthers their first loss with a 2-0 victory), they did a good job and we had just two changes, but for some reason it was very disjointed. We struggled to make passes, we struggled to find each other. It was very windy, so the ball was going all over the place. Nothing we were trying was working out. We had them under pressure, yes, but just weren’t connecting. It was one of those games where it didn’t go as planned, but once you get the three points, that’s all that matters.”
Rebels coach Jahmarley St. Rose declined to comment on the game. Captain Ervince Lochart said he felt that they played the better game. “We had a few early opportunities to put points on board but unfortunately, nothing happened, “he said. “We were missing a few key players at the start of the game so that kinda altered the results of the game. Nonetheless, it was a good game.”
Levron Williams and Latriel Williams had braces as defending champs VG United, (5-0-3, 15 points) rolled past cross town rivals Avengers (1-0-8, 3 points). Levon got his brace within a three minute first half span, scoring in the 22nd and 25th. Latriel added his first in the 29th for a 3-0 half time advantage, then completed his brace with his score in the 84th. Avengers avoided the clean sheet when Henry Caesar scored in the 89th.
Old Madrid (1-0-8, 3 points) won the battle of winless teams, when they were gifted two Positive (0-0-9) own goals for their first points of the season with a 4-3 win, leaving Positive as the only winless team.
Positive’s Prudent Rossier handed Old Madrid the 1-0 lead when he scored an own goal in the first minute of play. James Athime then scored for Positive in the 7th minute for a 1-1 tie. Richard Welcome put Old Madrid ahead in the 30th minute and Neil Hayes made it 3-1 at the half. But Positive used a Delshawn Daley’s 60th and 68th minute brace to knot the game at 3-3, only to give up a second own goal when Jeffnil Hazel put the ball in his own net in the 86th to give Old Madrid their first victory of the season.
One Love (3-1-6, 10 points) forfeited their game to the Virgin Gorda Sugar Boys (5-0-4, 15 points) when they failed to field a team at kickoff.
