NAIROBI, Kenya, March 25 – Al-Ahly FC from Kajiado County and Tranzoia’s Kitale Queens were on Sunday crowned the boys and girls Rift Valley Region Chapa Dimba Na Safaricom Champions.

The two teams booked their national finals slots after emerging top during the regional finals held at the Eldoret ASK Showground.

Kitale Queens over-powered Nandi’s Itigo girls thrashing them four goals to nil to emerge winners in the girls’ category.

Malondo Agnelita scored a hat trick for her team seeing the back of the net at 35th minute, 45th minute and at 69th minute before Cynthia Libondo sealed the win for the Queens at 74th minute.

“We’ve been working hard for this tournament winning against very tough teams along the way. We work as a team and this has earned us good results. This is the basic reason I became the MVP in the tournament. We look forward to being national champions in June at Kinoru,” said Cynthia Libondo, MVP & Captain, Kitale Queens.

It was a tough match between Uasin Gishu’s Tumkas FC and Kajiado’s Al-Haly in the boys’ finals ending in a nil–nil draw in normal time.  Al-Haly won the match scoring thrice in the post –match penalty shootout.

“The game was very tough as our opponents were equally good. Our win today is a great news to the people of Kajiado and we’re very happy. We plan to go back to the drawing board and build our skills as we soldier to the national finals. We are looking forward to a great history,” said Hassan Abdirahman, Coach Al-Ahly.

The winners received a cash reward of Sh 200,000 each and now join Bishop Njenga Girls and Lugari Blue Saints from Western, Manyatta Boys and Ndhiwa Queens from Nyanza as well as Super Solico and St Mary’s Ndovea from Eastern for the national finals.

The runners-up also pocketed Sh100,000 each among other individual prizes. The competition aims at scouting for youth talent, developing grassroots football, and ultimately propeling gifted players to the national team.

This year an all-star team will be selected to attend a training camp in Spain during which they will play against local youth sides.