Carlos Kambaekwa
29 September 2008
Windhoek — Okahandja Beauties proved once again that they have very little peers when it comes to women's football domestically.
The girls from the garden town swept aside their opponents with ease during the two-day national championship under the auspices of the Namibian Football Association (NFA) in Windhoek, last weekend.
Beauties, representing the Khomas Region, thrashed Rehoboth Queens from the Hardap Region by 4 goals without a reply in a one-sided final at the Khomasdal Stadium in Windhoek, yesterday.
The match started at a frantic pace but the searing heat soon played havoc on both sets of players with fatigue clearly setting in - forcing the players into making silly mistakes.
The girls from Rehoboth were the more enterprising in the opening minutes as they took the game to their more fancied opponents, but it was Beauties who had the best chance in the opening minutes. Mekondjo Salome almost put her team ahead with a ferocious grass-cutter from outside the penalty area but Aurelia Christiaans in Queens' goal was equal to the task.
Immediately afterwards, Queens' Rauchanda Platt missed a sitter when she shot wide with the net begging and from the resultant goal kick - the ball fell to the feet of Cafu Gebhardt, whose volley from outside the penalty box went fractionally over the cross bar.
Skipper Leandre Lucas put up a faultless display in the heart of Queens' defence and led by example as she thwarted everything thrown at them with Beauties' winger Bianca Fredericks proving a constant thorn in the flesh of Queens' defenders.
Fredericks showed great skill down the right wing and had the opponent's rearguard at sixes and sevens whenever on the attack and on one such occasion - she went on a solo run past a cluster of bemused defenders before she unleashed a thunderous shot that kissed the roof of the net to open the floodgates.
Queen's substitute Mariska January almost brought the teams on level terms with a long-range lobbed effort that was palmed away for a corner by the agile Eixas.
The Rehobothers pressed for the elusive equalizer and when the chance presented itself - Natasha Ndjao ballooned the ball into the skies with the goal at her mercy before successive long range attempts by Platt and Gail Gowases also failed to find the target.
And that's how it remained going into the changeover : Beauties 1 - 0 Queens.
Lucas was fractionally wide with a well taken long range free kick after the break as Queens camped in the opponent's area. Substitute Marele Polster rose above a static defence and headed powerfully past Christians for goal number two that all but fused off any hopes of a comeback Queens might have entertained at that stage.
Brave Gladiators' playmaker Stella Williams put the result beyond any doubt with a long-range free-kick that flew into the net past Christiaans, who dismally failed to gather what surely looked like an innocent looking shot.
Muscular substitute Melisa Bekker completed the riot with a close range header for goal number four and that's how it finished: Okahandja Beauties 4 - 0 Rehoboth Queens.
The Khomas region representative walked away with a handsome first prize of N$20 000 with Queens taking home a consolation prize of N$10 000 while the third-placed National Defence Force (NDF) outfit received N$5 000 - leaving Kunene to pick up the remaining N$2 500 for their trouble.
All together eight teams took part in the two-day round robin marathon tournament and the results read as follows.
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