Nongthymmai SC overturned a run of defeats to beat Nongrim Hills SC 3-0 in the Shillong Premier League 2024 match at the SSA Stadium at First Ground, Polo, here this evening.
Michaelson Kurbah (40’), Ronald Singh Shaikhom (57’) and Istarbor Marngar (59’) were the scorers in Nongthymmai’s first win of the season. This also ends a run of seven losses in the competition, going back to SPL 2023.
On a cold evening with Diwali fireworks going on around the ground, Nongthymmai worked their way up the left and Michaelson dealt with the resulting cross to put his team in front before half time.
In the second half, Ronald, two minutes after he was denied by the crossbar, was fed a through ball and went one-on-one with Nongrim Hills goalkeeper Urbanity Makhroh to score.
Just two minutes later, Ronald turned provider when he raced up the right flank and set up Istarbor for the third strike of the evening.
Nongrim Hills had several shots of their own throughout the game but never really came close to scoring as none of these were on target or threatening enough to challenge Nongthymmai keeper Roni Das.
It was a disappointing performance for Nongrim Hills who are in the top half of the table with 4 points. That figure is a little misleading, however, as their win was via walkover due to Laitkor SC’s issues with player registration in the first match.
The victory for Nongthymmai means that all 10 teams have registered at least one win this season and there are five clubs on 3 points each – Rangdajied United FC, Nangkiew Irat SC, Nongthymmai, Ryntih FC and Langsning FC.
Nongthymmai will be in action again in the next OC Blue SPL match on 4 November against Laitkor SC at 5:30pm.
