The Akwa Ibom female football team Wednesday defeated their Osun counterparts 4-1 in the Group B preliminaries of the ongoing 18th National Sports Festival.
Akwa-Ibom is grouped alongside Taraba, Osun, Benue and Enugu and they are playing their matches at the Agege Stadium.
Akwa Ibom had led the game with two goals in the first half and scored two more in the first 15 minutes of the second half.
Osun, however, erased one of the goals when one of their players was brought down in their opponents’ goal area, resulting in a penalty that was converted.
Coach of Team Akwa-Ibom, Atta Bello Udia, attributed his team’s victory to hard work and good preparation.
“We are here for the gold medal. My team is fully prepared and determined to achieve our aim,” he said.
His Osun counterpart, Johnson Kehinde, expressed dissatisfaction over his team’s performance and promised to bounce back in their next match.
“I am not happy that we conceded four goals. We had chances but did not convert them to goals,” he said.
Osun had earlier won their first match against Benue 2-0 on November 26 and will play against Taraba in their next match on November 30.
Akwa-Ibom also won their first match against Taraba 2-1 and will now meet Enugu.
In group A, the match between Kaduna and Adamawa was a walkover because Team Adamawa failed to show up.
Meanwhile, defending champion of female chess team event, Team Delta, began their quest of another brilliant outing at the National Sports Festival with a 3-1 win against eternal rival, Edo State, in the opening round of matches of the nine-round Swiss event pairing.
The trio of Hafsat Osagie, Nneoma Aguta and Queen Princewill trounced Augusta Azike, Nora Eluse and Ajikan Iren in that order but Marian Ossai conceded to better positional play from Deborah Wemimo to give Edo the solitary win Wednesday night.
In some other results, Federal Capital Territory succumbed to Bayelsa 4-0 while Plateau and Benue shared points at 2-2. Oyo State got the better of Kwara at 3-1 just as Ogun brushed aside Osun with a 4-0 demolition.
Host Lagos were 4-0 better than Imo when the quartet of Yemi Osindiakin, Seun Olabisi, Chinyere Igweyere and Tomiwa Oyewole mauled their respective opponents in the opening round to boost their confidence of making good result at the end of the series next week.
In the male section, Istanbul Olympiad debutant, Nonso Orawgu, failed to re-enact his brilliant outing three months ago as he fell to better middle game display from Abiola Akinseye who rallied Oyo male to 2-2 score line with Delta.
Emmanuel Maduagwuna had earlier secured a win for Delta over Dube Ikeagwunan but Anuinoh Chike put Oyo with a win against Onovoghe Ochuko but Ovie Adagha retorted equity with a long end game win over Jacob Ladipo.
Both Edo state male team defeated Kwara 4-0 in another match of the day.