Montserrado wins first championship after 63 years

Following a complete lion fight between Montserrado and Maryland Counties on Sunday, 15 December, Montsorrado won its first championship against Maryland in Liberia’s National County Sports Meet.

The trophy becomes Montserrado County’s first ever trophy in the National County Sports Meet here after 63 years of participation. The host county struggled  to win Maryland during penalty kicks awardedboth sides after the 90 minutes ended in a draw of one goal for each side.

The two teams meet in the first county meet final in 1956, and they failed to score against each other. In that year, penalty kicks had not been introduced to Liberian football or football in general.

Organizers were said to have thrown coin to decide the winner. Maryland County emerged from the coin throwing as the winners of the first National County Sports Meet. While the Marylanders make a good come back in the 84 minutes of the game with Kelvin Allison giving them the equalizer and putting the fans back in the game, the full 90 minutes ended with 1-1. Montsorrado won the penalty kicks by three goals against one for Maryland.

The two counties are historic counties in Liberia, but have not made much of history in the sporting arena. They have met several times in the qualifying stage of the competition with the most recent being a group meeting which ended in a 0-0 draw at the David Quion Stadium in Bong County, in 2013/2014. At the end of the 2016/17 County Meet, Nimba County which was thrown out of the finals by Maryland County, has emerged to win three trophy in this year 2016/17 National County Meet in Kickball, Basketball andVolleyball categories after beating Montserrado and Margibi.

Nimba’s football team was sent home by Maryland in a 2-0 defeat in the semi- final last week. Nimba County’s Volleyball and Basketball Teams maintained their unbeaten runs in the Basketball and Volleyball editions of the 2016/17 National County Sports by beating Montserrado County for the third time this season.

By Sally Gaye