Nairobi News

Kenya’s Harambee Starlets stormed the semi finals of the ongoing Cecafa Women Championship with a 4-0 thrashing of Burundi on Tuesday at the Njeru Technical Centre in Jinja.

This was the Starlets’ second victory following an identical victory over hosts Uganda in their opening match on Sunday.

Neddy Atieno scored a brace with Essa Akida and Mary Wanjiku completing the win over a Burundi side that whipped Zanzibar 10-1 on Sunday.

“We are still on course. Getting out of the group was our target, now we need to try and make the finals,” Kenya coach David Ouma told Nairobi News.

“I just told my players to play their game, everyone should play their role and that’s what they did. Burundi’s padding game was only going to be stopped by our running game and we beat them with our pace,” he added.

Kenya’s final group match against Zanzibar is now a formality, with a semi final contest against either Ethiopia, Tanzania or Rwanda looming at the weekend.

BREAKTHROUGH

Kenya found a breakthrough through Atieno who took advantage full advantage of Burundi’s clumsiness while defending a corner.

Three minutes later Kenya’s lead was doubled by Wanjiku who capitalised on the gaps in Burundi’s defense to shoot from 20 yards.

At the stroke of half time, Akida took advantage of an offside before shooting past Ndoraraha for Kenya’s third goal.

Atieno wrapped up matters with her second goal of the game, and her third of the tournament as Kenya finished off Burundi.

At the hour mark,  coach David Ouma made all three substations at once, Atieno, Akida and Omondi all coming off for Vivian Corazon, Christine Nafula and Jacky Ogol respectively.

The afternoon drizzle with ten minutes to full-time slowed down the game but it didn’t stop Burundi players from getting cramps.

“We struggled alot to match them (Kenyan). Once they stopped us from playing our game I knew we were in trouble,” said Burundi’s coach Danieall Niyibimenya.