Jkuat thrash Umma as East Africa universities games start

KMTCs national games at Maseno. Kenya Medical Training College students Thika (in orange) and their Nakuru counterparts play volley ball at Maseno University grounds on August 02,2016 on the second day of the KMTCs national games. The five day event will end on Friday. (Photo: Denish Ochieng/ Standard)

Hosts Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat) thrashed Umma University 5-1 in football as the 10th edition of Eastern Africa University Games kicked off in Juja, yesterday.

Emmanuel Oinga opened the score sheet for Jkuat with a spot kick in the second minute in the highly unbalanced encounter.

The marauding Jkuat strikers missed open scoring chances before the breather. Both sides seemed to have put their houses in order on resumption as the contest became a see saw affair untill the 57th minute when William Githua netted from a left wing cross to give the hosts a 2-0 lead.

The goal seemed to have smoked out Umma’s hope for recovery as the contest again became highly unbalanced to the hosts favour.

Jkuat found the back of the net for the third time through Kennedy Owino who slotted in a perfect left wing pass from Githua. The other scorers for Jkuat included Kevin Mureithi in 82nd minute and Edward Yin in 85th minute.

Umma pulled one back through Fahim Salim in the 87th minute before the final whistle.

“It’s a great start for us. We prepared well for the tournament as the hosts and our hope is to win this prestigious football trophy among other disciplines,” said Githua who was outstanding.

This year’s games dubbed ‘Regional Sports for Health, Unity, Peace and Academic Excellence’ seek to promote interaction among students within the Eastern Africa universities while encouraging professional and personal growth through sports.

The games, awarded on a rotational basis within member states, were established in 1999 with the aim of promoting youth development and unity among East African countries through sports and bring together participating teams from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea.

The week-long games that end on December 21 involve over 4000 students from over 35 universities across the East African Region.

The disciplines include athletics, basketball, football, rugby, volleyball, tennis, handball, netball, hockey, swimming, table tennis, karate, tae kwon do, chess, scrabble and Badminton. Uganda’s universities have dominated the games and Makerere University won the overall title in the second, third, fourth and fifth editions.

Ndejje University won the overall title for sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth editions. Kenya’s Egerton University hosted and won overall title in the first edition.

With great preparation, Jkuat is hopeful to win the overall title this year to curtail Ugandan dominance in the games.

“Being the host, we have a lot of belief that we can be crowned the Kings of the 10th edition Games,” said Jkuat Sports Director, Moses Odeng.

He added that his institution has strong teams that are buoyed with confidence given that some of the Jkuat players also turn up for national assignments in rugby, softball and karate.

Jkuat emerged 19th overall out of 47 universities who took part in the ninth edition held at Uganda’s Christian University in Kampala.