{"id":200995,"date":"2015-05-07T04:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=200995"},"modified":"2015-05-07T04:00:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T18:00:32","slug":"shirleys-vs-matansa-in-fa-cup-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/shirleys-vs-matansa-in-fa-cup-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Shirley\u2019s vs Matansa in FA Cup finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2015 FA Boys and Girls Challenge Cup finale will be an all-girls affair following the victory of Shirley\u2019s and Matansa football club\u2019s U15 squads yesterday in the semifinal round matches at the Hopwood Junior High School Field.<\/p>\n

\"Matansa<\/a>
Matansa Football Club U15G\u2019s Pinyarat Shankweiler steps in on defense to prevent a Kanoa FC U12 player from dribbling the ball during their semis game in the 2015 FA Boys and Girls Challenge Cup yesterday at the Hopwood Junior High School Field. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matansa FC U15G secured the first finals ticket in the annual competition after beating Kanoa FC U12 co-ed at Hopwood\u2019s Pitch 2, 3-1. A few minutes later over at Pitch 1, Shirley\u2019s U15G bagged a 4-1 victory over MP United U12 co-ed to complete the finals cast. Matansa and Shirley\u2019s will battle for the championship this Saturday at 3pm at the Hopwood pitch after the consolation match between MP United and Kanoa U12 co-ed teams at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n

Shirley\u2019s and Matansa won yesterday\u2019s pair of matches despite allowing their respective foes to score first.<\/p>\n

In the Shirley\u2019s-MP United tussle, the latter\u2019s Rintaro Miyawaki drew first blood early, finding the back of the net in the 10th minute of the one-hour match.<\/p>\n

However, MP United\u2019s hold on the driver\u2019s seat was short-lived as two minutes later a miscue from its female player Maaya Sato gave Shirley\u2019s an own goal and tied the match. Shirley\u2019s went on to grab the upper hand after the first half, thanks to Katrina Costales\u2019 shot in the 18th minute.<\/p>\n

It was all Shirley\u2019s from thereon, as it dominated possession in the second half and added two more goals. Diana Maniacop handed Shirley\u2019s its third goal in the 45th, while De Jana Muna scored the last five minutes later.<\/p>\n

In the other semis pairing, Kanoa surprised its favored opponent by lighting up the board first off Ian Karl Maniago\u2019s goal in the 11th minute. Kanoa kept the shaky lead at the end of the 30-minute first half, but failed to prepare against Matansa\u2019s fightback in the second and last frame.<\/p>\n

Bernadette Horey led Matansa\u2019s second-half recovery, scoring back-to-back goals. She got her first in the 34th minute and the second seven minutes later. Angelica Sally closed out for Matansa in the 53rd.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Shirley\u2019s-Matansa finals showdown this weekend will feature the Top 2 finishers in the girls division of the 2015 NMIFA Youth Spring League. Shirley\u2019s ruled the double-round robin contest with its 8-2-0 win-draw-loss record and 26 points, while Matansa, which won last year\u2019s spring season, ended up with a 7-3-0 mark and 24 points.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s FA Cup finalists and MP United and Kanoa U12 co-ed teams were joined in the annual tournament by Paire, Tan Holdings, and Kanoa and MP United\u2019s girls U15 squads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2015 FA Boys and Girls Challenge Cup finale will be an all-girls affair following…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":201001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4378,4241,4379,4380],"class_list":["post-200995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ian-karl-maniago","tag-kanoa-u12","tag-katrina-costales","tag-pinyarat-shankweiler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}