Tutorial Academy emerged as winners of the inaugural Wilbur Hope Schools Memorial Football competition, edging past Berbice High School (BHS) 2-1 at the All Saints Scots School ground in New Amsterdam on Friday.
Scoring for Tutorial were Jermaine Whitney in the 10th minute and Renaldo August in the 20th minute.
Jeremy Semple scored for BHS in the 54th minute off the penalty spot. Tutorial indicated their intentions from the start of the match but had to wait for ten minutes before their strikers were able to find the back of the net.
In what seemed to be a one-sided affair up until then, Tutorial had a 2-0 half-time lead.
Upon resumption, BHS came into their own and forced Tutorial to implement a four defence strategy.
Jamaal Butts, Ray Ruddock, Sherwin Sampson and Joshua Butts all had to bring out the best in them as National U-17 striker Mark Wrong and Kerron McKenzie made several constructive advances.
On one occasion, McKenzie was able to pull all the defenders to one side of the goal and then give Wrong the perfect pass, eight feet from the goal line with the goalkeeper not in place. Wanting to score in flamboyance and style, Wrong may have taken a little too long and Joshua Butts got in place to make the save for his team.
It was an infringement in the penalty area which gave BHS the chance to score.
They used their best man at taking penalties in order to give them a chance to come back in the game, but that was too late. Tutorial implemented a strategy which saw them kicking off the ball whenever they had a chance to do so, ensuring that the BHS lads were given limited scoring opportunities in the dying stages on the 60-minute game.
In the playoff for third place, Berbice Educational Institute (BEI) defeated New Amsterdam Multilateral (NAMS) 4-3 on penalties after the two teams played to a 1-1 draw at the end of regulation time.
Scoring for BEI was Rolex Semple in the 45th minute, while Shekel Grant scored the game’s first goal in the 20th minute for NAMS. The tournament attracted six schools and was run for five days.
The MVP award went to Mark Wrong of BHS, while the best striker and most goals awards went to Steford Edwards of BEI. Edwards scored four goals during the tournament.
The best defender was Jermaine Samuels of BHS, while the top goalkeeper was Omari Bennor of BEI. The tournament was played on a round-robin basis with four teams going through to the knockout round.
Wilbur Hope was a national footballer and also a coach who made tremendous contributions to the development to football in Berbice.
During the presentation ceremony co-organizer Kenneth Bowery noted that there were some concerns about players being out of school, but were still allowed to represent their schools. He said that in the future any competition being organized by the Heart of Oak Club for schools will see only students with 80 percent attendance being allowed to participate.
Neil Humphrey said that he was satisfied with the attendance at games and praised the teams for the discipline they showed in turning up for games on time.