Ondo State based football club, Sunshine Stars of Akure have found themselves draged into battle for survival performance in the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) after a poor run of form has wiped out their early season impressive performances.
The Owena Whales as they are popularly known suffered a 1-0 loss to Shooting Stars of Ibadan at the Remo Stars Stadium, Ikenne on Saturday despite dominating proceedings for a huge part of the match.
The Owena Whales started the battle of Stars with good exchange of passes from defense to the final third, but were denied by the visitors to get a goal.
Despite Sunshine Stars’ dominance of the South-West derby, it was the Oluyole Warriors that went away with maximum points through Alex Aghahowa’s 27th minute goal.
Sunshine Stars’ efforts to get a leveler in the first half was denied by their former goalkeeper, Mustapha Lawal.
The restart of the second half saw a much hungrier and more aggressive Sunshine Stars but all efforts to level up was thwarted by Shooting Stars.
Sodiq Ibrahim thought he had brought Sunshine Stars back into the game in the 77th minute, only to see his header hit the cross bar.
Tactical changes made by Sunshine Stars Head Coach, Bobola Akinfolarin, was not able to get the job done as the visitors coasted home with maximum points.
Sunshine Stars are currently 16th on the log and will play their rescheduled match day 13 tie against Enyimba International on Wednesday in Aba before heading to Minna to trade tackles with Niger Tornadoes.
Sunshine Stars
