Solid Rock Ministries’ football team defeats Kings Church’s team with a 7-3 victory on Saturday night, 12th October, to become the number one team in the Adventist football tournament which began on the 3rd of August. Their victory pushed Kings into second place and the Filadelfia team, with a 2-0 win over the Bodden Town team, took third place.
At the end of the football tournament in 2017, Solid Rock Ministries’ team upset Filadelfia’s three-year winning streak, from 2014 – 2016, to become the conference champions. Filadelfia reclaimed the first place trophy title in 2018, but Solid Rock Ministries was determined to regain the title in 2019. Its left to be seen who the champions will be next year!
The league kicked off that first Saturday night, at the Annex, with a game between Solid Rock Ministries and East End church. Every Saturday night, thereafter, three games were played. Ten teams entered the tournament which was divided into two groups. Teams in Group A were Solid Rock Ministries, Newlands, Ebenezer, East End and Kings. Teams in Group B were Savannah, Filadelfia, Bodden Town, Bethel and Ephesus.
The Director of Sports for the Caymans Islands Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Mr Deandro Dracket, said: ‘that more teams were interested in participating in the tournament, but due to the limited time availability of the playing facility it had to be limited to 10 teams. This facilitated the need for combining of teams’.
According to Mr Dracket, to encourage more participation, the rules for the tournament state that for every game, each team must have at least one female and one youth under 15 playing throughout the entire game. Also, even though football players from the community are invited to support the teams, the rule is that only three community players could be on the field at any given time.
In an interview, the Sports Director said: ‘overall, the tournament has been a success, and the public has given tremendous support’. He expressed thanks and appreciation to the Cayman Islands Department of Sports for providing Referees every year, and for the huge discounts on the use of the fields for the games. He also said that: ‘the reason for the league is to provide an opportunity for Adventist youth football players to play in a league because most other leagues play their games on Saturday.
To encourage support for the players, every year, an award is given to the most supportive church. This year the Newlands Church received the award. A big thank you to all churches for their support to the youth of the church. Congratulations to all teams that participated. Every team is a winner! We look forward to next year’s bigger and better football tournament.
