Naps extend lead in SSFL

Defending champions Naparima, clinging on to a one-point lead ahead of St Anthony’s College, defeated Trinity College (Moka) 3-1 to extend its lead to three points. Ezekiel Kesar scored a brace for the defending champions and national youth player Mark Ramdeen got the other item.

St Anthony’s, playing at the college’s school ground in Westmoorings, were held to a 2-2 draw by fellow North Zone team East Mucurapo. St Anthony’s took the lead in the 28th minute through Kairon Manswell, a lead it held onto until half-time. In the 75th minute, Zion McLeod equalised for Mucurapo, before Darius Douglas regained the lead for St Anthony’s in the 83rd minute. Mucurapo never gave up as Delany Zamore equalised again for “Compre” in the 85th minute to leave the match all squared after 90 minutes.

Carapichaima East Secondary, only three points behind Naparima before yesterday’s matches, were held to a 1-1 draw by mid-table team Queen’s Royal College at the Carapichaima ground. The only other top five team to come out victorious yesterday were Presentation College, San Fernando who edged San Juan North Secondary 2-1 at Manny Ramjohn Stadium in Marabella.

In other matches, St Benedict’s moved from the bottom of the standings with a 1-0 win over Speyside Secondary, Trinity College East crushed St Mary’s College 5-0 to move from 12th to eighth and Pleasantville Secondary jumped from tenth to sixth place with a 4-1 win over the fading Malick Secondary. St Augustine Secondary were on a bye, yesterday.

Round nine of the competition will be played on Wednesday at 3.30 pm.

STANDINGS

Team P W D L GF GA Pts
Naparima 8 6 2 0 21 8 20
St Anthony’s 7 5 2 0 22 7 17
Pres San F’do 7 5 1 1 21 5 16
Caps East 7 4 3 0 12 7 15
East Mucurapo 7 3 3 1 14 8 12
Pleasantville 7 3 1 3 12 10 10
QRC 7 3 1 3 10 16 10
Trinity East 7 2 2 3 11 12 8
Speyside 7 2 2 3 9 19 8
San Juan North 7 2 1 4 12 7 7
St Augustine 7 1 4 2 14 13 7
Malick 7 2 0 5 12 16 6
St Benedict’s 7 2 0 5 7 15 6
St Mary’s 8 1 1 6 5 20 4
Trinity Moka 8 1 1 6 8 27 4

SSFL Premier Division Results

(Saturday 5 October)

St Benedict’s College 1 (Ackeem Mason), Speyside Secondary 0 at Mahaica Oval;

St Anthony’s College 2, East Mucurapo 2 (Zion McLeod, Delaney Zamore) at Westmoorings;

Carapichaima East 1 (Isaiah Samuel), QRC 1 (Miguel Cross) at Carapichaima;

Presentation College (San F’do) 2 (Jaiye Sheppard, Ackeel Jacob), San Juan North 1 (Tyrique Sutherland) at Mannie Ramjohn;

Trinity East 5 (Jovonn Gomes [4], Terrell Wiley), St Mary’s College 0 at Trincity;

Naparima College 3 (Ezekiel Kesar [2], Mark Ramdeen), Trinity Moka 1 (Menes Jahra) at Lewis Street;

Malick Secondary 1 (Nickell Alexander 4), Pleasantville Secondary 4 (Flex Lewis 1, 31, Nikoli Mendoza 26, Ephraim Brown 43) at Serpentine Road;

St Augustine Secondary are on a bye

Upcoming Fixtures

(Wednesday 9 October)
[All games start at 3.30pm]

Speyside Secondary v Carapichaima East at Speyside;

St Anthony’s College v Naparima College at Westmoorings;

Trinity East v QRC at Trincity;

Presentation (San F’do) v St Augustine Secondary at Mannie Ramjohn;

Malick Secondary v St Benedict’s College at Hasely Crawford;

San Juan North v St Mary’s College at Bourg Mulatresse;

RELATED NEWS

Pleasantville clobbers Malick 4-1.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

Na­pari­ma Col­lege just can­not seem to stop win­ning, and on Sat­ur­day they ex­tend­ed their points tal­ly at the top of the stand­ings in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) to 20 points fol­low­ing a con­vinc­ing 3-0 vic­to­ry over the strug­gling Trin­i­ty Mo­ka op­po­nents.

Ezekiel Keser scored a dou­ble for the south­ern­ers and Mark Ramdeen scored the oth­er to open a three-point ad­van­tage at the top of the 15-team ta­ble.

Af­ter the match, Na­pari­ma man­ag­er Per­cy Sam­lals­ingh said the score so eas­i­ly could have been 14-0, but his play­ers didn't cap­i­tal­ize on the op­por­tu­ni­ties that came their way.

At St Mary's Ground on Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair, Mal­ick Sec­ondary found them­selves at the end of a brace from Flex Lewis and a gen­er­al les­son from Pleas­antville Sec­ondary in a com­pre­hen­sive 4-1 loss to the vis­i­tors.

Un­der the swel­ter­ing hot sun and ir­ri­tat­ing sand­flies at the venue, Mal­ick's de­fence was hard­ly set­tled when Lewis pounced for the open­ing goal in the first minute, to hand his team the ad­van­tage.

How­ev­er, the Pleas­antville cel­e­bra­tions were on­ly short lived, as Nick­ell Alexan­der lev­elled the scores with his item in the 4th minute. But the vis­i­tors seem to have got­ten the bet­ter of the fluc­tu­at­ing af­fair that fol­lowed.

Mal­ick should have scored from a build that came from noth­ing. Matthew Con­stan­tine weaved his way out of a tight Pleas­antville de­fence and de­liv­ered for Zion Car­pette on the left side. But Car­pette, the scor­er of many of Mal­ick's goals this sea­son, quick­ly re­leased for an open Ma­made Guer­ra on top the area. How­ev­er, the lat­ter, af­ter go­ing past two de­fend­ers, hit a weak shot that failed to trou­ble a busy Ra­heem Lee in the Pleas­antville goal­post.

Pleas­antville, with the speedy Dil­lon Year­wood on the right side, ter­rorised Amir Sim­mons in the first half. And it was through one of these at­tacks that the south­ern­ers went ahead. Goal­keep­er Jay­don Tay­lor and his de­fence mis­judged a Year­wood's cross from the right side. And when the ball was put back in­side the area from the left side, Nikoli Men­doza met it sweet­ly on the vol­ley, in­to an emp­ty net for a 2-1 lead.

Coach An­tho­ny Samuel's re­luc­tance to plug the gap­ing hole in his de­fence on the left side, made them pay for it dear­ly. This time Lewis, the scor­er of the first item-Lewis, found him­self at the end of a cross, af­ter Sher­win An­drews drove skil­ful­ly past some three de­fend­ers on the right side, and drilled the ball through an open Mal­ick de­fence be­fore Lewis met it at the far post to fire home in the 33rd minute.

Lat­er, Year­wood set up his team's fourth goal, with an­oth­er surg­ing run down the right flank be­fore de­liv­er­ing for Ephraim Brown to tap home in the 43rd minute for a 4-1 lead, which they took to the half-time in­ter­val.

There­after Samuels sought to stem the flow of at­tacks down his left side by mak­ing a few ad­just­ments. But there was the an­swer for sub­sti­tute Hezron Matthews who came in for Sher­win An­drews, and with on­ly his sec­ond touch of the ball, he al­most squeezed Year­wood's left side cross past the Mal­ick cus­to­di­an.

Mal­ick lat­er re­spond­ed with a flur­ry of at­tacks which went off tar­get or were saved by the Pleas­antville goal­keep­er.

Mean­while, at Cara­pichaima Ground, the home team would count them­selves lucky to pre­serve their un­blem­ished record, in a 1-1 draw with Queen's Roy­al Col­lege.

The Roy­alians were un­lucky not to have tak­en the lead from the penal­ty spot ear­ly in the en­counter when the speedy Ja­heim Grander­son was hacked down in the box dur­ing one of his ster­ling runs down the flank. The en­trust­ed Dar­rion Brad­shaw missed the spot-kick. They were made to pay for that missed chance when Isa­iah Samuel fired the home team in­to the lead.

The Roy­alians had to wait for the equalis­er in the sec­ond half from Miguel Cross. Am­nd in a last-ditched at­tempt for the win­ner, the dan­ger­ous Nathaniel James was put through on a one-on-one with the goal­keep­er, but he some­how missed the tar­get, for a share of the points.

And over at Trin­i­ty Col­lege East Ground in Arou­ca, Javonn Gomes scored the tour­na­ment's first beaver-trick (four goals) to guide Trin­i­ty East to a 5-0 rout of St Mary's Col­lege. Ter­rell Wi­ley was the oth­er goalscor­er for the home team.

SAT­UR­DAY'S RE­SULTS

Naps 3 (Ezekiel Keser 2, Mark Ramdeen) vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka 0

Cara­pichaima 1 (Isa­iah Samuel) vs QRC 1 (Miguel Cross)

St An­tho­ny's 2 (Zion Williams, Dar­rius Dou­glas) vs East Mu­cu­rapo 2 (Zion Mc Leod, De­lany Zamore)

St Bene­dict's 1 (Ac­k­eem Ma­son) vs Spey­side 0

Trin­i­ty East 5 (Javonn Gomes 4, Ter­rell Wi­ley) vs CIC 0

Pres 2 (Jaiye Shep­pard, Ac­k­eel Ja­cob) vs San Juan 1

Pleas­antville Sec 4 (Flex Lewis 2, Nikoli Men­doza, Ephraim Brown) vs Mal­ick 1 (Nick­ell Alexan­der)

LAT­EST STAND­INGS

Teams*P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*PTS
1*Na­pari­ma Col­lege*8*6*2*0*21*8*+13*20
2*St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege*7*5*2*0*22*7*+15*17
3*Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege*7*5*1*1*21*5*+16*16
4*Cara­pichaima East*7*4*3*0*12*7*+5*15
5*East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary*7*3*3*1*14*8*+6*12
6*Pleas­antville Sec­ondary*7*3*1*3*12*10*2*10
7*Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege*7*3*1*3*10*16*-6*10
8*Mal­ick Sec­ondary*7*3*0*4*13*12*1*9
9*Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*7*2*2*3*12*11*1*8
10*Spey­side High School*7*2*2*3*9*19*-10*8
11*San Juan North Sec­ondary*7*2*1*4*12*7*+5*7
12*St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary*7*1*4*2*14*13*1*7
13*St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege*7*2*0*5*7*15*-8*6
14*St. Mary’s Col­lege*8*1*1*6*5*20*-15*4
15*Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka*8*1*1*6*8*27*-19*4

East Mucurapo v Pleasantville at Mucurapo Road;

Trinity Moka are on a bye