Tumaini, Isiolo Starlets win Eastern region Chapa Dimba titles

Tumaini School and Isiolo Starlets are the new Chapa Dimba na Safaricom Eastern region champions in the boy’s and girl’s categories respectively.

In the finals held Sunday at Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos, Makueni’s Tumaini edged out Black Panthers of Meru with a resounding 4-1 win to bag their maiden title while Isiolo Starlets punched their way to victory following a 3-2 win against Chuka University.

Yasin Mohammed who emerged overall boys’ top scorer with seven goals, scored a hat-trick for the champions in the five goal thriller finale with the win sending the students to the national finals for the first time since the youth fiesta started three years ago.

Speaking after the deserved win, Tumaini head coach Fredrick Mbalu praised his charges for the good show while at the same time shifted focus to the nationals where he admitted he expects a tough outing.

“My boys followed our game plan to the latter and that’s why we have recorded two good wins during the tournament and now we want think about the nationals where if we play like we did these during regional finals we can stun other heavyweights, ” he charged.

Mbalu at the same time praised his danger boy Mohammed for his stellar performance during the two-day event.

” The boy has a bright future and I can attribute his good form to hard work and discipline. He will be of big help to us in Mombasa if he will replicate his fine form at the national stage, ” he added.

In the girls’ contest, Isiolo Starlets came from behind to defeat favourites Chuka University 3-2 in entertaining clash.

The winners will join North Eastern’s Berlin FC from Garissa and Coast region’s Yanga FC from Malindi and Kwale Ladies and Central’s Falling Waters FC and Ulinzi Youth who have already booked their spots for the national finals where Sh1 million grand prize is up for grabs

An all-star team comprising of 32 boys and girls will at the end of the regional finals be selected to attend a 10-day training camp in Spain where they will play top Spanish La Liga Football Academies.

The winners in every category pocketed a prize of Sh200,000, while the runners up walked away with Sh100,000.

The annual competition now heads to Nairobi region on February 22 and 23 with the national championships primed for June in Mombasa.