National champions St John's launch title hunt

Depleted reigning national secondary schools girls’ football defending champions St John’s Kaloleni have a date with Kajembe secondary of Mombasa this morning as the Coast Region games begin at Kilifi on Thursday.

Saint John’s, who have dominated the Coast regional secondary school games for close to six years, lost a record 16 players from the squad that clinched the National Secondary Schools title when the games were held in Kisumu last year and have been struggling throughout their campaign.

Team coach Joseph Oyoo on Wednesday said the school lost 11 players who completed their secondary education while another five transferred to other schools.

“I literary scrapped through to the regional,” he said.

According to Oyoo, stiff competition will come from Kwale Girls and Mwakitawa Girls, whom he said have come of age, but has promised to use his vast experience to tame them.

Stiff competition will also be expected in boys' volleyball, where regional defending champions Waa Boys High school will be up against bitter rivals Shimoni secondary and Mariakani Secondary, all of whom have proved to be hard nuts to crack in local tournaments.

Waa Boys, whose coach and principal Rodgers Siasa Mwafungo also doubles up as the Coast Regional Schools Sports boss, have what it takes to retain the title and improve on their performance at the National championships to be staged in Nyeri next month.

“The boys have been training very well and remain focused with the target purely on reaching the East African Games," Mwanfungo said.