Late goals give USC, UV victories in Cesafi men’s football

Booters from University of San Carlos and University of Cebu battle for ball possession during their Cesafi match. USC won 3-2. CDN Digital photo | Mars G. Alison

CEBU CITY, Philippines—Late goals helped the six-time defending champion University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors and runner-up University of the Visayas (UV) Green Booters improve their standings in the college division of the ongoing 19th Cesafi Men’s Football Tournament in their Wednesday matches, September 25, 2019 at the Cebu City Sports Center.

A last minute goal inside the three-minute added time by Karol Joshua Meneses sealed a 3-2 win for the Warriors against the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters.

Meneses came on at the 85th minute to replace John Reevo Jumawan.   

It was the Webmasters who scored the first goal via Kurt Cuizon with just three minutes into the match.

Nathaniel Buca scored the equalizer for the Warriors in the 19th minute. 

However, Cuizon brought UC up again by one with his second goal in the 30th minute.

USC showed why it is the six-time defending champion by remaining calm and once again bringing the match to square one by scoring the second equalizing goal in the 47th minute courtesy of Joshua Famador.

The match stayed deadlocked at 2-all until Meneses came in and broke the tie to seal the win for USC and allowing them to solidify their hold of the top spot with 10 points on a 3-1-0 win-draw-loss record. 

UC dropped back to fourth place on a 1-1-2 card and failing to add to its points.

UV versus USJ-R

Three-time Cesafi top goal scorer Kenneth John Vargas finally found his grove when he not only scored his first two goals this season but also helped UV get its title bid back on track via a 2-0 blanking of the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R) Kicking Jaguars.

The first of Vargas brace was scored in the 17th minute. He sealed the win for the Green Booters in the 90th minute.

The win was UV’s second in four games and allowed the Green Booters to climb to the second spot with six points on a 2-0-2 card.

USJ-R remained at the bottom after failing to add to its two points on an 0-2-2 record.

Change of Schedule

Cesafi football tournament director Francis Ramirez said that no matches will be played for two weekends due to unavailability of the playing venue.

This weekend, September 28-29, the Cebu City Sports Center will be used for the Cebu leg of the National MILO Marathon while on October 5-6, it will be the venue for the 100-day report of Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella.

Collegiate matches will push through on October 2 but the ones scheduled for October 9 will be rescheduled to the afternoon of October 26, also due to sudden unavailability of the playing venue.

The matches in the secondary division will resume on October 12, the start of the second round of eliminations. /bmjo