By S. Siapha Mulbah
Lofa County football team has fast grown to be considered as the most consistent and improved team of the age in the national county sports meet as they currently celebrate their second title in history.
The ‘Wologizi Boys’ from the nation’s ‘bread basket’ has played four of the last five county meet finals at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex wining two and losing two in a space of nearly six years.
Their most recent success in the national sporting tournament is the just ended edition where the boys from Voinjama City played against Grand Gedeh County in the grand finale at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in the city of Paynesville.
The meeting which was Lofa’s fourth grand final experience in recent years saw the green colors stand tall with a smooth 2-1 win to be crowned champions of the county meet football category.
Voinjama came alive with jubilant celebration against Zuluwhisky in eleven minutes of the finals raising the curtains of goals with Emmanuel Flomo, a native of the land finding the back of the net.
With eleven minutes reading on the game stop-watch, the defense of Grand Gedeh could not understand their error, when everyone got to know that Flomo in the #11 shirt had fast passed the defense to get a re-bounced that was just timely for a goal to lead.
However, Grand Gedeh came back to respond with the equalizer in a long volley that Goal Keeper Junior Yeaney failed to grab in the 27th minute. Daniel Moah was just there on time to get it in for the Gedians who were tarrying around the stand for their boys’ success.
The match decider was later scored before the sound of the halftime whistle. Francis Doe is the name remembered for Lofa’s winning goal in about 33 minutes in the first half.
The entire second half was played by both sides with greatest event recorded incident being a missed penalty at a very crucial time for the south eastern cheering squad.
This 2-1 win at fulltime woke up the crowd for a victory that got Lofians now in the archive as a two-time county meet champion. The first time the county ever won the tournament was in 2020.
After winning the 2020 edition of the competition, they did not qualify for the finals the following year, but later made a comeback in 2022. Since 2022, Lofa has played all of the competition’s finals.
In their comeback finals, Lofa lost to Nimba. The year after, they also lost to River Gee before making a comeback in the 2024/2025 edition that was collected to be transported to Voinjama in the coming days.
