Handball: Young City shock Desert Scorpions

Bottom-of-the-table Young City stunned highly-ranked Desert Scorpions 34-32 in a tightly-contested Kenya Handball Federation (KHU) National Men's League match at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi on Saturday.

City boasts of a lot of talent from the national deaf handball which competed at the Summer Deaflympics in Caxias du Sol, Brazil last year.

Coach Fredrick Omole’s Scorpions led 18-16 at the halftime break, but fell behind  27-24 with 10 minutes remaining.

Inspired by captain Joel Kiilu, City regrouped in the last two minutes, levelling at 31-31 before pulling away to register only their third victory this season in the 19-team league.

“When Scorpions opened a three-point lead, we thought this match was over for us. But I called for a timeout and instructed my players to subdue Scorpions lethal player Kelvin Mwangi. It worked well for us as we managed to contain them and I’m happy we got maximum points from the match,” Omole said in a post-match interview.

“We started this fixture well but lost grip at the beginning of the second half. I’m happy that we finished strongly after my players followed the instructions.”

Omole noted that they have had challenges in training because of job commitments by players.

“We train twice a week. Most of the players have job commitments and can fail to turn up for training for one or two weeks. This affects our fitness levels but we are improving.”

His opposite number Bamariz Abdalla attributed the loss to small mistakes.

“We played most of the match with one fewer player because we suffered two-minute suspension nine times. It was not such a bad match but these suspensions are what cost us,” added Abdalla, noting that they hope to rectify their mistakes in order to get better in their upcoming matches.

Kiilu was the thorn in the flesh of Scorpions. He earned eight penalties for City, seven of which were scored by Moses Okoth.

Danstone Shamala scored the most goals for City (10) followed by Okoth and Dickson Manyane (seven each). Benson Mutinda and Wilson Gathimba scored the highest number of goals for Scorpions at nine and seven respectively.

Scorpions are on 12 points from 18 matches, while City now have six points after playing a similar number of matches.

In other matches held at the same venue, fifth-placed Strathmore succumbed to a narrow 24-22 loss at the hands of eighth-ranked army side Thika Engineers.

Ulinzi Sharks ripped apart Rising Star 59-11 in the women's league. Sarah Wasike emerged the top scorer in the match with 11 goals for Ulinzi who comfortably led 28-6 at halftime.

Sharks have amassed 26 points from 15 matches in the 12-team league. Nairobi Water Queens top on 34 points from 17 matches. Rising Star have four points from 17 matches.