St Anthony’s reclaim football title

• Rift Valley team floors Nairobi’s Upper Hill in boys’ final as Atieno lifts Tartar Girls to glory

Rift Valley’s Anthony’s reclaimed the boys’ football title after beating Nairobi’s Upper Hill 2-0 in the final as curtains came down on the Airtel Rising Stars national secondary schools Term Two ‘B’ games at Shanzu Teachers College on Saturday.

Oscar Silkhan put St Anthony’s in the lead in the 31st minute from a penalty kick after a defender from Upper Hill handled in the box.

Ken Simiyu added the second  in the 69th minute with a hard shot  following a goalmouth melee.

St Teresa’s Tartar Girls also emerged the new national champions after thumping St John’s Kaloleni  from Coast 5-0 in a one-sided final in the girls’ category.

Sweet victory

It  was a sweet victory  for the Rift Valley side which finished second in last year’s finals. Tartar  were in  a class of their own and could have won the game by a bigger margin had they converted the many chances that came their way.

St John’s Kaloleni, who were making their debut at the national stage, looked contented with a slot to the East Africa school games set for Burundi  and offered little resistance to Tartar.

Nelly Atieno, the tournament’s top scorer, hit the back of the net four times, first in the 10th and 27th minutes in the first-half, and returned to score 53rd  and 63rd minutes of the second-half. Miriam Chelangat  scored Tartar’s other goal in the 68th minute.

Nairobi’s Olympic finish third

Nairobi’s Olympic High School finished third in the girls’ category to book a ticket to the East Africa school games in Burundi after beating Kobala from Nyanza 2-1 in the play-offs.

Kakamega High School finished third in the boys’ category after beating defending champions Gekomoni  from Nyanza  1-0 in the play-offs. Kakamega will, however, not travel to Burundi as Kenya will only be represented by Upper Hill and St Anthony’s.

In volleyball, champions  Cheptil Boys  and Malava Girls successfully defended their titles after easy victories in the final.

But Cheptil Boys were made to sweat before beating a determined Mukumu Boys 3-2  in  a tough final match which could have gone either way. Cheptil had earlier beaten Mukumu  3-1 in the preliminary group A match and went into yesterday’s final as favourites.

But it was a different ball game when the teams took to the pitch as   Mukumu rallied from two sets down to tie the scores 2-2  before  Cheptil capitalised on experience to win the final set 15-12.

In the girls’ category, champions Malava Girls beat Cheptil  3-1 (25-17, 25-22, 22-25 and 25-21  to successfully retain the title.

In the play-offs, Kwanthanze from Eastern beat Othoro from Nyanza  3-0 (25-12, 25-18 and 25-15) to book a ticket to the East Africa secondary school games. Also through  to the regional games  are Hospital Hill from Nairobi, who beat Mivumoni from Coast 3-0 ( 25-14,25-17,25-14) in the boys’ play-offs.