Fruta Conquerors edge Santos 2-1 to win Milo-U-23 Tourney

Sep 27, 2011 Sports

– Schultz voted tournament’s MVP

By Rawle Welch
Just as anticipated, the clash in the final of the Milo Under-23 Football Competition produced a pulsating contest that had the capacity crowd which included Nestle representatives on the edge of their seats as both Fruta Conquerors and Santos exhibited enough skills to confirm that a young budding set of ball weavers are set to emerge in the sport.
Playing on Sunday evening at the Tucville ground, the feature match was a definite crowd pleaser as both teams displayed a higher level of tactical and technical proficiency that was absent for a large period in the competition.
Fruta Conquerors led by goals from Pernell Schultz (13th) minute and Marco Marcus (36th) defeated Santos 2-1 with Edward Austin (68th) netting the consolation goal for Santos.

The three players to be awarded special prizes (centre) pose with Nestle representatives on Sunday evening.

In the play-off for third place, Police showed no mercy in inflicting a crushing 5-1 triumph over Flamingo.
After some enterprising play early in the game where both sides looked equally potent, Fruta Conquerors took the lead through an intelligent piece of play by the up and coming star Schultz, who demonstrated acute awareness in seeing goalkeeper O’Neil Haywood off his line after receiving a long pass from the back and clinically lobbed the ball over his head into the back of the net.
That brought a rapturous response from the partisan home crowd as Conquerors went ahead early.
Though they fell behind, Santos did not cower and even strung together a few lovely sequences of play that had it not been for competent defending could have resulted in goals.
However, Conquerors obviously a well schooled team showed more technical efficiency and stretched their lead further when Marcus evaded two tackles, before letting fly a fierce shot past Haywood.
The half came with no change to the scoreline.
After the resumption, the teams continued to thrill the fans, especially Schultz, Tavis Burnette and Marcus, while Trevon Lythcott and company remained infallible at the back.
Santos, however, was able to break the wall when a perfectly floated cross from the left flank landed into the path of Austin and he delivered a bullet like header past the Conquerors custodian.
After that Santos attacked relentlessly in search of the equaliser, but the host backline remained sturdy and held on until the end to notch up the top prize of $100,000 and a trophy, while Santos took home $50,000 and a trophy.
Police received $30,000 and a trophy, while Flamingo carted off $20,000 and a trophy.
The Most valuable Player award went to Pernell Schultz of Fruta Conquerors, while Colin Harris collected the Highest Goalscorer accolade.
Best Goal Keeper prize was given to Fruta Conquerors Ryan DeRoche, while the Most Disciplined Team award went to Charlestown United.
A total of 96 goals were scored in the competition with 58 coming in the round robin stages, while 38 was netted during the KO phase.
Meanwhile, Nestle Brand Manager Selwyn Bobb speaking after the presentation ceremony thanked the Fruta Conquerors FC for organising the tournament which according to him was run to the approval of the sponsor.
Bobb after giving a little insight about the benefits of the product Milo promised to double the sponsorship across board for next year’s competition.
“We are looking to get more teams involved and double the prize monies come next year,” Bobb said.
He urged all teams desirous of participating next year to commence preparations very early since they are hoping that the performances improve even further.
Nestle representatives Nirvanie Bhairopersaud and Eion Fitzpatrick assisted with the handing over of prizes to the respective winners.