Tough Fighters

The top players for the Suba Lakers reported to Mbita on Tuesday night, August 25th for three days of training ahead of the Nyanza Provencial Constituency Tournament. They stayed together at the SEEK base across from CGA and had two practices a day in preparation for the matches. As winners of the inter-constituency tournament three weeks ago, we were representing the other local consitituencies against the best in the province.

We travelled to Kisumu on Friday and were set to begin our first match early on Saturday morning. Because of the problems in organization of the tournament committee we waited for a long time. Finally in the middle of the afternoon they told us to take lunch at the YMCA. When we arrived there, they weren't ready and forced us to wait. While waiting we received a phone call that we were needed at the field immediately. So we rushed the team to the field to play on empty stomachs. The girls fought valiantly against the top team in the tournament and conceded one goal right before halftime. The game was shortened because of time constraints and we ended up losing a hard fought match 1-0. We were forced to remain at the field and play our 2nd match on empty stomachs (we had eaten 3 slices of bread for breakfast 10 hours prior). We managed a draw in another time-shortened match where we were so close to scoring the go-ahead goal. Finally at 6:30 pm we took our lunch and then supper came about an hour later.

With all the problems from Saturday, we still only needed a win in our final pool game to qualify for semifinals. We tried our best, but just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net. It was a frustrating game and weekend for our girls, but they kept up good attitudes throughout all the difficult circumstances and we improved as a team by competing well against strong competition. Most of the other teams had girls that were between 18 and 25 years old. Our starting 11 consisted of 8 primary school girls and 3 secondary school girls. These young girls are continuing to gain experience and grow as individuals and as a team.