The winning team!
Westville Boys’ High School 1st Football Team took top honours this weekend after winning the prestigious Kloof High School Football Tournament. The team had gone into the three-day Tournament with high hopes this year after a very successful start to the domestic season. With 32 schools competing , the Tournament makes for tough competition with top level schools competing for the honour of being crowned tournament champions.
The first day of competition at Kloof High saw Westville take on Marianridge and Port Shepstone. A header from Shane Ball saw Westville take an early lead thanks to some great footwork from captain Jason Oakes. Unfortunately with just two minutes remaining in game time Marianridge equalized and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
In the 2nd game Port Shepstone took an early lead but Westville went on to dominate the game and with 2 goals from Simiso Buthelezi and 1 from Kyan Braithwaite, the WBHS team won the game 3-1.
Buthelezi once again put 2 points on the board for Westville on day 2 in their morning match against Grosvenor with Jacques Bleeker scoring another goal to beat them 3-1 after Grosvenor scored a late goal.
This put the WBHS team to the round of 16 in the afternoon where they took to the field against Carter High. After a physically tough battle for both sides, Westville once again had Simiso Buthelezi to thank for the 1-0 win.
This took the WBHS team through to the quarter-finals on day three with a monumental match against close competitors, Maritzburg College. In what was described as the match of the tournament in both expertise and sportsmanship, the game ended in a draw 0-0 forcing a penalty shootout. Goalkeeper Neil Boshoff was undoubtedly the hero for Westville in this game making two brilliant penalty saves to see Westville through to the semis 4-2.
The pen-ultimate game pitched WBHS against Izisanda who took an early lead in an extremely tense semi-final. neat inter-play from Shane Ball on the wing and Kyan Braithwaite allowed Mohamed Patel to volley the ball into the back of the new leading to a deadlock 1-1 with 3 minutes of play left. Again it was a penalty shoot-out and Neil Boshoff once again showed his mettle as 1st Team Football Goalkeeper and his two saves gave the semi-final victory to Westville 4-1.
The Final was a tight affair in which the Westville team were up against Victoria Park from East London. Despite not having the lion’s share of possession in the first half, WBHS was well disciplined and with organized defensive play kept the game at 0-0 until the final minute of the first half when saw a perfectly executed header from Kingsley Jollands into the nets after a long throw in from Brad Smith.
The second half showcased Westville’s brilliant defense and the final whistle blew for a 1-0 victory for the Highways side. This was Westville Boys’ High School’s third Kloof Tournament win.
Neil Boshoff was named player of the tournament, a first for a goalkeeper in this competition.
The following Westville players were selected into the tournament team:
1. Neil Boschoff
2. Ndimiso Mbambo
3. Bradley Smith
4. Nhlanhla Blose
5. Ebraaheem Vahed
6. Simiso Buthelezi