Marauding Leopards Storm Top Eight Final

Last season's Player-of-the-Year Jacob Keli, returned to haunt his former side KCB once again as in form AFC Leopards stormed to the final of the KPL Top 8 by completing a resounding 4-1 aggregate win over the Bankers Wednesday.

Keli was among the scorers with his second of the tournament and third against his past employers with Austin Ikenna and Bernard Mang'oli also hitting the target in an emphatic 3-0 rout in their semi-final second leg at Nairobi's Nyayo National Stadium.

The result sets up Ingwe for a showdown with organisers, the Kenyan Premier League (KPL), after earlier declaring they would not travel for Sunday's final at Meru's Kinoru Stadium where they will meet home side and defending champions Tusker who are yet to lose at their new backyard.

Ingwe who entered the semi-final return leg disadvantaged by an away goal in a 1-1 first leg stalemate were ruthless after finding renewed vigour under their new Dutch head coach; Pieter De Jongh, who won his second domestic match on the bounce.

Nigerian import Ikenna put Leopards ahead in the 8th minute before midfielder Mang'oli netted for his second successive game in the 41st with Keli, who was named, man-of-the-match completing the rout in the 55th.

"We played well although it was not easy but the result was good. We missed several chances, in the beginning where we could have won the match 5-0 but it was a difficult game in the first half since the tempo was low.

"We have played a lot of matches in a short period but it was for our benefit. The final can go either way, we respect our opponents who are a good team but we will give it our best," Leopards head coach Pieter De Jongh told after the win.

For Rishadi Shedu; who was looking for his first win since he was appointed; was still confident his struggling team will pick-up.

"We started well but did not convert our chances, we were hopeful to pick up but our opponents proved to be strong.

"The spirit of the players was still high despite trailing since they were still attacking to the final whistle. We are targeting to boost our squad in this transfer window where we will be looking for strikers since our problem is we are not scoring," crestfallen Shedu stated.