Suba Laker Day and KYFA Tournament

We love getting to spend quality time with our Suba Laker girls.  During the school break between Term 1 & Term 2, we brought all the Suba Lakers together for a Suba Laker Day. On Monday, May 21^st, we had a great day with the girls at the Mbita High School pitch. Suba Laker Days are an opportunity to check-in on how they’re performing academically, encourage them to keep working hard and remaining focused on what’s important (1. God, 2. family, 3. academics, 4. football) and, of course, enjoying a day of training together as a team.

After the day of training, many girls remained behind to train for the upcoming Kisumu Youth Football Association (KYFA) Nationwide Ladies Tournament.   On May 25-27 we traveled to Kisumu with 2 teams to compete in both tournament categories; Under 15 and Open Age. Some of the top teams from all over the country traveled to Kisumu to compete.  Since the Kenya Women’s Premier League hasn’t yet started this year, many Premier League teams flocked to the tournament.  In addition to great football, KYFA does an excellent job of bringing in successful women to share with the girls.  Throughout the 3-day tournament, speakers discussed many topics which affect young girls in Kenya today. 

GOAL!

On the field, our Under 15 team showed great skill and teamwork on the smaller pitch designed for the 7 v. 7 competition.  Though many of the other teams used players who were over the age of 15, our Suba Lakers were young girls with great potential.  They played aggressively, dominated a number of matches, but ultimately finished 1 point behind 2^nd place and thus didn’t qualify for the Semifinals. 

In the Free Age category, our girls battled hard.  Several of our top Suba Lakers were not able to play with us in the tournament because of injuries, home responsibilities, and a few were also playing with their secondary school teams.  That gave opportunities for some of the other players to step into their roles and get a chance to gain some valuable experience against strong competition.  They played against top teams from across the nation, including the Kenyan Premier League team, Thika Queens.  Besides the previous 3 days of training, our girls hadn’t played together as a team since last December. But they battled hard, gave their best and worked well together as a team. They finished 4^th in the pool of 6 teams. 

Suba Lakers and Jera Secondary School football teams

Great Coaches ~ Great Friends

Though both of our teams were now out of the tournament, we scheduled a friendly match against our friends from Jera Secondary School for the following day.  Jera is a school we love.  We are good, long-time friends with their Head Coach, Jacob Oganga.  We appreciate how he cares for his players and his skills as a great coach.  Joe has learned much from Coach Oganga over the years. During the match we mixed in some of our Juniors (primary school girls) with the older players and had a lot of encouragement from the bench. The friendly match ended in a loss of 3-1 but the girls gave a great effort and enjoyed the entire weekend.