Monday, June 22, 2015

Witsieshoek School wins Free State's Thabo Mofutsanyane Kay Motsepe Schools Cup district finals




Manthatisi High School from Theseng Village, Witsieshoek are the Thabo Mofutsanyane District winners in the Free State division of the under-19 Kay Motsepe Schools Cup, sponsored by the Motsepe Foundation and Sanlam, and they will be going to the provincial finals later this year.

This is the 1st time that the school has advanced to this stage of the competition, despite entering each year since 2010, and John Hlohlongwane, the team’s manager, puts it down to really hard work this time.

“Since 2010 the school has been knocked out in the early stages of the tournament every year,” he said. “With working hard we have managed to finally reach the provincial finals. I really commend the team for putting in 110% in training and in their matches. They have really worked hard and from the beginning of the year and I could tell that the team were determined to win.”

There is a good attitude in the players, Hlohlongwane said, and should they continue like this they should do well in the provincials.

“It’s been a tough road to make it to the finals. We have played 17 games already from cluster level, through to the regional play offs, and the players have risen to the occasion. I would have to say that the team’s determination and hard work definitely helped them win all those games,” he said.

The team suffered a major setback when their coach for the past 7 years, Thabo “Troussier”  Maboea, sadly passed away recently. “He is the one responsible for the team’s success,” Hlohlongwane said. “He worked tirelessly in training and grooming the boys. We don’t have a coach at moment and are in the process of getting one of the local coaches to help us. Once that happens we will begin our preparations for the provincial finals.”

The team has won through to the provincial finals for the first time and the coach knows that the boys will be a bit nervous. “However, we know that Harmony High School, the team that has been dominating in this tournament, has been knocked out and with them gone it’s looking very possible that we might actually win the provincials,” Hlohlongwane said.

“We have beaten the stronger schools in our district including Ntsu high School, who competed in the nationals in 2010 as well as Tlokola Secondary School who went to the nationals last year. HTS Louis Botha is also a strong school, although last year they didn’t even make it through the provincials.”

Results
Manthatisi 1 vs Evungweni 1
Leifo-Iziko 0 vs Tlokola 0
Evungwini 0 (1) vs Manthatisi 0 (3)
Leifo-Iziko 0 vs Ntsu 2
Tlokola 2 vs Ntsu 0
Final

Manthatisi 1 (7) vs Tlokola 1 (6) 

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