Sunny day for D’Assisi

St Francis D’Assisi, Borivli, won the Ahmed Sailor Cup boys’ under-16 inter-school tournament by beating St Mary’s SSC, Mazagaon, 5-2 on Friday. Sunny Thakur, D’Assisi’s most prolific scorer for the season, scored a hat-trick in the title game.

Although the margin of victory was three goals at the final whistle, St Mary’s gave their opponents a tough fight throughout the game. The Borivli side went ahead through a Clive Patel header early in the game. Thakur doubled the lead late in the first half, but Deepak Mehta brought the Mazagaon side back in game with a brave header.

Both teams played attacking football in the second half, as D’Assisi refused to sit on their lead and St Mary’s tried to regain parity. Thakur latched to a Siddarth Nayak free kick, which was saved by the goalkeeper to score his second, half way through the second period. St Mary’s came back a second time, when defender Francis Fernandes playing in an advanced position scored from a long ball.

In the second half, D’Assisi sealed the game, with Patel scoring his second from his head and Thakur completed his hat-trick taking.

Thakur, who scored 15 goals in five games for D’Assisi, was the hero of the tournament. However, the revelation of the final was the diminutive Patel, who scored twice off a header. “I wanted to score at least once in the final. I wanted to do it for my coach since I had not played so well in the previous games,” said Patel. In the third place game Bombay Scottish, Mahim beat Stanislaus, Bandra 1-0.