Lae to host semis

Sports

By PATRICIA KEAMO
LAE residents will get a chance to see Southern Conference winners Genesis and runners-up Hekari United in action when they travel to the Morobe capital for the Women’s National Soccer League (WNSL) semifinals at Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium on March 13.
Hekari will face Northern Conference winners Poro and unbeaten Genesis will most likely meet Sepik, who boast a better goal difference and have six points more than third-placed Bara with two rounds of the Lae leg remaining.
The winners of the semifinals will then travel to Port Moresby for the grand final at Papua New Guinea Football Stadium on March 20 (3pm kick-off).
The losers will meet in the third-place playoff as a curtain-raiser to the decider (1pm).
The top-two teams in the Southern Conference, which wraps up its regular season on Saturday, will have a week’s break while awaiting the Lae leg to complete its matches on March 6.
“The WNSL is played in two stages,” PNG Football Association (PNGFA) competitions manager Paul Isorua said.
“The first one is the conference stage which will end soon and then we proceed to the finals.”
The semifinals will be played in a criss-cross format where the conference winners will face the runners-up of the other leg.
“The season has been successful so far and we’re looking forward to hosting a successful finals series in Lae and Port Moresby,” Isorua said.
Meanwhile, PNGFA president John Kapi Natto said the prizes for the women’s finals totalled K80,000.
The champions will receive K30,000 along with the winners’ trophy and medals.
The runners-up will bag K25,000 while the third and fourth finishers will settle for K15,000 and K10,000 respectively.
Apart from that, special awards will be given to both conferences in the categories of the most valuable player, top goal scorer (golden boot), best goal keeper (golden glove) and the fairest team of the conference.