Puntarenas Deals Saprissa a Stunning Blow
by Rod Hughes
Are you ready for this, friends? Puntarenas 4, Saprissa 1.
Last year’s champs appeared much like has-beens in the port city’s Lito Perez Stadium yesterday. It appeared at first like a normally hard-fought First Division game with Puntarenas’s Jose Garro opening scoring after 22 minutes of play and Saprissa’s Jody Stewart evening it up two minutes later.
Rodolfo Arnaez made it two for Puntarenas with an accurate bullet before the first half ended. Greaves made it 3-1 and Saprissa coach Jeaustin Campos may have felt the premonitions of disaster, especially with the fancy footwork Jorge Barboza had been using all day to confound Saprissa defenders. Then Barboza made the fourth goal.
Wednesday, Saprissa again meets Puntarenas in the UNCAF international tournament of clubs for the right to go on to the semifinals and Campos hopes recent history won’t be repeated.
Santos 2, San Carlos 1
San Carlos not only lost another game in a so-far-dismal season but also its head coach, Julio Cesar Cortes, who resigned. Paulo Rodriguez opened scoring for San Carlos after only three minutes and was on his way to being a hero until Johnny Acosta blotted his copybook with a self-inflicted goal that evened it up. But Marvin Chinchilla scored for Santos with 10 minutes left in the match. San Carlos had appeared all afternoon like interested observers.
Heredia 3, Liberia 0
Heredia had it all their way over the hapless Liberia Mia team, dealing the Guanacaste province team its fourth consecutive loss. Star midfielder Jafet Soto sank the first one barely 14 minutes in, Liberia’s Jorge Retana the second on an autogoal (oh, that’s embarrassing!) and Gerald Drummand the third early in the second half.
Carmelita 3, Cartago 1
Cartago is often referred to as the “foggy city” but the only fog on the bright day at Fello Meza Stadium was the home 11. After 15 minutes, Carmelita’s Minor Diaz brought gloom but David Diach brought a ray of sunshine by evening it up before the first half ended.
But Alejandro Gonzalez’s cannon shot early in the second stanza brought back the gloom, deepened by Kaylor Soto’s last minute goal. Tennis, anyone?
Brujas 1, UCR 0
Ring out the bells! Brujas of Escazu won a match, only its second this season. It all happened when Ricardo Harris centered the ball to Ricardo Steer who lofted it, then headed it into the University of Costa Rica’s goal. Unusual, but whatever works…