Nigel Si­mon

So­ca War­riors de­fend­er Aubrey David got the lone goal as ti­tle-hold­er Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA con­tin­ued the de­fence of it T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy crown with a hard fought 1-0 win over Joe Pub­lic (East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) at the Mara­cas Recre­ation Ground on Wednes­day night.

David, one of five mem­bers of the Cale­do­nia squad who helped T&T to a sec­ond place fin­ish at the just con­clud­ed Caribbean Cup in St John's, An­tigua on Sun­day, los­ing 1-0 to Cu­ba in the fi­nal, fired in the de­ci­sive item in the 75th minute in their round-of-16 en­counter to se­cure a quar­ter­fi­nal clash with gi­ant killers Stoke­ly Vale when the tour­na­ment re­sumes on Jan­u­ary 9.

For Wednes­day's en­counter, Cale­do­nia coach Jer­ry Moe opt­ed not to use his oth­er T&T in­ter­na­tion­als in Den­sil Theobald, Ataullah Guer­ra, Key­on Ed­wards and Ja­mal Gay and that de­ci­sion against a de­fen­sive mind­ed Joe Pub­lic al­most cost his team.

How­ev­er, De­fence Force, beat­en by Cale­do­nia in the FA fi­nal, 2-1 crashed out of this year's tour­na­ment af­ter go­ing un­der to Stoke­ly Vale of the Su­per League, 2-1 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

De­fence Force, cur­rent­ly top of the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League ta­ble al­so had the op­tion of us­ing its re­turn­ing na­tion­al quar­tet of De­vorn Jorsling, Kevon Carter, Richard Roy and Cur­tis Gon­za­les for the tricky test with Stoke­ly Valet which stunned T&T Pro League's St Ann's Rangers, 3-2 in the pre­vi­ous round and al­so dumped Po­lice and Cale­do­nia, its next op­poent from the Toy­ota Clas­sic tour­ney last month.

But the "Teteron Boys" coach, Ross Rus­sell on­ly used Jorsling from the start and the tac­tic back­fired as Run­dell Win­ches­ter fired the To­bag­o­ni­ans ahead as ear­ly as the sec­ond-minute while Do­minic Mc Dougall made it 2-0 for the un­der­dogs in the 52nd minute be­fore Jorsling pulled a goal back five min­utes lat­er.

Both Carter and Roy were then in­tro­duced soon af­ter but Stoke­ly Vale held firm to reg­is­ter an­oth­er big win this sea­son and move in­to the last-eight of the pres­ti­gious tour­na­ment where it will face a fa­mil­iar foe in Cale­do­nia.

An­oth­er ma­jor up­set took place at the La Brea Recre­ation Ground, where na­tioanl Un­der-20 goal­keep­er and Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League "Play­er of the Year", Kwe­si We­st­on scored a hat-trick and then saved two penal­ty kicks to earn South Zone SS­FL Co­ca-Co­la In­ter-Col cham­pi­ons, Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege, a 3-0 penal­ty-kicks tri­umph over OJ Sol­da­do All Sat­sr af­ter a 3-3 draw in reg­u­la­tion-time.

In Wednes­day's two oth­er late match­es, Gary Glas­gow and Neil Mitchell were on tar­get as for­mer win­ners' North East Stars blanked 1st FC San­ta Rosa, 2-0 in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va while Cen­tral FC came from be­hind to edge Po­lice 2-1 in the first match.

In the three ear­ly match­es on Wednes­day, Bevon Bass scored a sec­ond-half brace as T&TEC whipped En­ter­prise Youths 3-1 while Cunu­pia FC, cham­pi­ons of the CFA Pre­mier Di­vi­sion and South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Petrotrin Su­per League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion win­ners Pt Fortin Civic Cen­tre, al­so ad­vanced, 3-2 and 2-0 over Mathu­ra FC and Joe Pub­lic (Su­per League) re­spec­tive­ly.

Wednes­day's T&TFF FA?round-of-16 re­sults:

T&TEC 3 (Bevon Bass 57th, 87th, Kern Pe­ters 7th) vs En­ter­prise Youths 1 (Ryan Fred­er­ick 20th)

Pt Fortin Civic Cen­tre 2 (Mar­cus Joseph 77th, Stephen Joseph 90th pen) vs Joe Pub­lic (Su­per League) 0

Cunu­pia FC 3 (Akeil James 5th, Ja­mal Spencer 45th, An­tho­ny Noel 49th) vs Mathu­ra FC 2 (Kiesh Charles 9th, Kendall Nathaniel 23rd)

North East Stars 2 (Gary Glas­gow, Neil Mitchell) vs 1st FC San­ta Rosa 0

Shi­va Boys (Kwe­si We­st­on 3) vs OJ Sol­da­do All Stars 3 (Amari Et­ti­enne, Lin­sie Sher­wood, Den­nis Burgess) - Shi­va won 3-0 on penal­ty kicks

Stoke­ly Vale 2 (Run­dell Win­ches­ter 2nd, Do­minic Mc Dougall 52nd) vs De­fence Force 1 (De­vorn Jorsling 57th)

Cen­tral FC 2 (An­tho­ny Wolfe 51st, Dar­ryl Trim 62nd) vs Po­lice 1 (Ka­reem Per­ry 15th)

Cale­do­nia AIA 1 (Aubrey David 75th) vs Joe Pub­lic (EFA) 0

Quater­fi­nals fix­tures:

Jan­u­ary 9, 2013:

Cale­do­nia AIA vs Stoke­ly Vale

Cunu­pia vs North East Stars

Cen­tral FC vs Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege

Pt Fortin Civic Cen­tre vs T&TEC