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Matansa rules Division 2 of M-League
Matansa Football Club took the Division 2 spring championship in the M-League.
Matansa Football Club’s Tej Gurung beats a World Resort player for the ball during their first round meeting in Division 2 of the M-League at the Oleai Sports Complex Field.
(Roselyn B. Monroyo)
The club secured the season title as early as last Wednesday after routing Kanoa FC, 6-1, at the Oleai Sports Complex Field.
Ahmed Titu led Matansa’s championship-clinching victory, scoring a pair of goals in the one-sided game. Titu logged his first goal in the opening half after Young Hi Hwang put Matansa on the board for the team’s 2-0 halftime lead. The eventual champion’s third goal came off Kanoa’s miscue, while Shahanewaz Luvlu handed the squad its fourth. T.J. Gurung and Titu then canned the last two goals for Matansa, while Kanoa avoided a shutout, thanks to Davy Laxa’s shot.
With Matansa whipping Kanoa in the penultimate playing day of the division, the former finished the double-round robin season with an 8-2-2 win-draw-loss record and 26 points, just 2 more than runner-up Sun Palace.
Sun Palace played in the final game of the spring season last Sunday and cruised to a 7-1 victory over the CNMI Women’s National Team.
Jun Sik Kim starred in the easy win with his hat-trick, while Feng Chun Jin added two goals, and Heng Guo Piao and Jihu Jin contributed one each. Sun Palace went on to cap the season with a 7-3-2 slate and 24 points.
World Resort and Kanoa earned 19 apiece, but the former won the tiebreak for third due to the goal difference, 9-0. World Resort finished the season with a 5-4-3 record, while Kanoa owned a 6-1-5 mark. The Thundercats (4-3-5), Shirley’s FC (4-3-5), and the CNMI Women’s National Team (0-0-12) rounded out the field.
Meanwhile, Wild Bill’s defeated Paire, 3-1, in the final Division 1 game last Sunday.
Evan Belcher, Jack Thoensaket, and Tanapon Unsa bagged one goal apiece for Wild Bill’s, which wrapped up the season with a second-best 8-0-2 record behind division champion Tan Holdings FC (9-0-1).
Paire, which got its lone goal from Ajani Burell, placed fourth in the six-team field with its 3-1-6 slate behind MP United (4-2-4) and ahead of Inter Godfather’s (2-2-6) and Korean Football Association Saipan (0-1-9).
