Shirleys-1 flawless, Matansa wins

Shirley’s FC-1’s Taro Goto, left, and Shirley’s FC-2’s Ariel Jinang battle for possession during their second round game in Division B of the M-League at the Hopwood Middle School Field. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Shirley’s Football Club-1 finished the spring season of the M-League undefeated, while Matansa won the lone match played in the final week of Division B competition last Sunday at the Hopwood Middle School Field.

Shirley’s-1 wrapped up the two-round robin contest with a 12-2-0 win-draw-loss record, gaining victory No. 12 without a sweat after Sun Palace forfeited their match. The Division B champion was awarded the 3-0 win, bringing its goals total to 38—the most scored in its group in 14 games. Shirley’s-1 also allowed the least goals with eight, becoming the only team to have yielded goals in single digit in the entire league this season. Division A runner-up CNMI Boys U16 National Team had the least goals allowed in its pool with 10.

Meanwhile, Matansa topped the CNMI Women’s National Team, 4-0, in the first game in the final week of the spring season, while Shirley’s-2 and Kanoa also prevailed in their last matches of the season via forfeitures against Korean Football Association on Saipan and the Thundercats, respectively.

Three different players hit the board for Matansa with Amzad Khan starting things out for his team after finding the back of the net in the 11th minute. Kamrul Kamrul then handed Matansa its second goal in the 43rd minute, while an own goal was credited to the winning squad four minutes later. Anamil Haque closed out for Matansa with his conversion in the 56th minute.

With the victory, Matansa climbed up to fourth place in the final team standings, displacing Sun Palace as the former ended up with a 7-3-4 record. Matansa collected 24 goals and gave up 12, the third least in the entire league.

Kanoa, with its victory against the Thundercats, kept the No. 2 spot after finishing the season with an 8-2-4 slate, just slightly ahead of Shirley’s-2, which held a 7-4-3 mark. Kanoa also had the second most goals in Division B with 31 and yielded 23, while Shirley’s FC-2 collected 29 goals, just one more than it allowed its opponents.

KFAS was ranked sixth with its 3-2-9 record and had only 17 goals, matching the output of the CNMI Women’s National Team, which avoided the cellar after posting a 3-0-11 mark. The Thundercats were at the bottom with only one win to show in 14 games (two draws and 11 losses) and also tallied the least goals in Division B this season with 11.

In the individual leaders in the most goals scored, Sun Palace’s Qiwei Wang retained the top spot with his team and Sun Palace not playing in their last games. Qang earned 10 goals against the eight each of KFAS’ Edwin Kim and Sun Palace’s Feng Yu. Kanoa’s Ian Maniago, Shirley’s-2’s Ryu Hoin and Dhiraj Chhetri, and Shirley’s-1’s Kosuke Sato finished the season with seven apiece.