The local U/14 pride, Benny's Care Soccer Academy, were booted out of the prestigious SAFSA MacDonald U/14 cup played at Polokwane's Nirvana Stadium on Saturday. Benny's lost 1-0 against Meridian College in the semifinal match.

Meridian applied their normal trick of displaying rough skills in the opening minutes, the strategy clearly being to kill their opponents' fighting spirit. They could not keep this up, as the referee soon flashed his first yellow card to Kutso Shalake for obstruction on Bigboy Ramalata.

Benny's missed a number of scoring opportunities in the first half. Itani Mutshembele and Cassius Thopola let the Benny's fans down by missing sitters in the 28th and 30th minute respectively.

Meridian got one scoring chance in the first half and used it fruitfully. Tumi Maluma headed the ball home after receiving a square pass from Meetse Masukga in the 37th minute, to bring the half-time score to 1-0.

Gift Khangala was replaced with Alfred Thema early in the last half. Thema combined well with Khutso Masishi and Matlou Lekgora at the front.

The home side introduced Ngoako Mokgawa for Thuso Kekanain the 75th minute. His introduction proved to be a clever move on the part of the Meridian technical staff as he was distributing some telling passes to the front runners.

In the first match, Benny's won 8-2 when they hammered Vatswari Primary from Mopani.