Tellippalai Mahajana win Samaposha Trophy
After a lapse of 38 years, Tellippalai Mahajana College, Jaffna won the All Island Under 15 Girls football championship to be the proud winners of the Samaposha Trophy under the captaincy of Gowri Surendran at the finals got underway at the Colombo City League Grounds.
Boys Under-15 winners: Zahira College
In the finals the lasses from the Jaffna peninsula scored a 2-1 victory over Kavisigamuwa Gamini Maha Vidyalaya, Kurunegala.
A school with a proud history of over a century of years, the Jaffna school was started with only six students and Mr. Thuraiappa Pillai was the founder and first Principal of the school. At the moment with a student population of over 1500 students the Mahajana College take part in five sports disciplines in Football, Athletics, Cricket, Volleyball and Basketball and just three years ago they started playing girls soccer and their captain Surendran represented Sri Lanka national soccer team in 2014. She is the deputy skipper of the Sri Lankan soccer team that took part in the South Asian Women’s soccer tournament last year.
This proud product of Mahajana College is a member of the Lanka Women’s soccer team that will take part in the South Asian Games 2016 scheduled to be held in India next month. Gowri Surendran speaking to the Sunday Times said that her path to the national level was not on a bed of roses and she thanked the Old Boys of the school for lending a helping hand to her providing all the needed facilities to reach this standard.
Under-15 Girls winners: Mahajana College
Gowri Surendran (Captain)
She also said that apart from her a host of talented players are at the school in other sports and Anithya Jegatheeswaran is the No. One jumper in the Pole Vault event at school and national level.
In 1971 this Jaffna school won the John Tarbet Trophy at the All Island Athletic Championships and from 1975 to 78 they had won the All Island Soccer championship consecutively. In addition to these notable performances K. Archika was adjudged the Best Player at the recently concluded Samaposha Soccer tournament.
In the Boys segment of the Samaposha tournament Zahira College, Maradana won the Boys Championship defeating Kinniya MV, Trincomalee 2-1. Zahirian Sajith Naufer won the Best Players award while M. Zakir was picked the Best Goal-keeper. The Samaposha Soccer Tournament was organised by the Sri Lanka Schools Football Association in collaboration with Sri Lanka Football Federation and was sponsored by Ceylon Biscuits Ltd.
C.W.W. Kannangara Maha Vidyalaya won the Boys championship at the last edition while Maliyadeva Balika Vidyalaya won the Girls championship.