Ja­maican goal­keep­er Shane Mat­tis was the toast of his Play Whe San Juan Jabloteh team-mates as he pulled off two saves in the penal­ty shoot-out to se­cure a 4-2 win over Pt Fortin Civic af­ter a 1-1 reg­u­la­tion time draw in the To­toya Clas­sic fi­nal at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va on Fri­day.

The win in the fi­nal was the first ti­tle for Jabloteh since it claimed the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League and Toy­ota Clas­sic dou­ble in 2008 un­der for­mer coach, Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick.

Go­ing in­to the match, Pt Fortin Civic was al­so seek­ing its first ti­tle since join­ing the T&T Pro League last sea­son and its sup­port­ers showed up by hun­dreds more, and nois­i­er than Jabloteh's.

But at the end of the night, it was the com­mu­ni­ty of San Juan that await­ed the ar­rival of the 2014 Toy­ota Clas­sic crown and a cel­e­bra­tion that took six mis­er­able years to come.

As ear­ly as the third minute, Jabloteh got the per­fect start when An­dell No­ray scored a blast just three min­utes in­to the fi­nal. But that lead was can­celled out by a rock­et in the 70th minute from Point Fortin Civic's An­drei Pacheco, lev­el­ing the scores 1-1 in the grit­ty af­fair.

Mat­tis dom­i­nat­ed the oc­ca­sion, pro­duc­ing two ex­cel­lent saves from the penal­ty spot, to help Jabloteh de­feat Civic 4-2 on penal­ty kicks to cap­ture the Toy­ota Clas­sic crown and $50,000 win­ners' prize.

Civic's cap­tain and cen­tral de­fend­er An­dre Et­ti­enne, seem­ing­ly a vic­tim of fi­nal jit­ters on the night, was the first to be stopped by Mat­tis, who pro­duced a low save af­ter Jo­han Pelti­er had put Jabloteh ahead on the first kick.

Shaquille Bertrand, Ker­ry Bap­tiste and Ja­maican mid­field­er Adri­an Reid al­so found the back of the net for Jabloteh al­though Civic and T&T goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip got glove to the two lat­ter.

But Mat­tis, the even­tu­al Toy­ota Clas­sic fi­nal "Most Valu­able Play­er", who was al­so bril­liant from the spot in two match­es dur­ing the 2014 First Cit­i­zens Cup, pro­duced an­oth­er low save to de­ny Steven Joseph on Civic's fourth kick to de­cide the win­ner af­ter con­ced­ing against An­drei Pacheco and Kevin Rouse.

"Shane Mat­tis has al­ways been a 'keep­er, once he is ful­ly fit, that will be ex­cel­lent," ex­plained Jabloteh coach Kei­th Jef­frey. "And I have made him ful­ly fit and he will al­ways be a match win­ner for us."

"It's about time I won some­thing," said the 34-year-old Mat­tis fol­low­ing the match.

Mat­tis, a sub­sti­tute goal­keep­er to Clay­ton Ince when the now de­funct Ma Pau SC won the Toy­ota Clas­sic in 2011, con­tin­ued. "I've been play­ing so long in T&T and nev­er won any­thing as a play­er in a game... on­ly on the bench. [Tonight] I was pret­ty con­fi­dent, be­liev­ing I could pull off a cou­ple saves [on penal­ty kicks]."

Mat­tis said that he and his team­mates were men­tal­ly pre­pared to do what was re­quired to top Civic for the ti­tle.

The Kei­th Jef­frey coached-Jabloteh grabbed the 1-0 lead while sup­port­ers were still turn­ing up at the sta­di­um, af­ter cap­i­tal­iz­ing on a mis­take in de­fence by Et­ti­enne.

No­ray swooped in on a give­away and from in­side the box the lanky To­ba­go-born for­ward smashed a left foot­er in­to the roof of the net with lit­tle chance to goal­keep­er Phillip.

No­ray was alive for the en­tire first half and had the bulk of Jabloteh's chances, one of which he forced a low save out of Phillip in the 27th minute from dis­tance.

In the 38th minute No­ray di­rect­ed a free-kick in­to the body of Phillip but failed to du­pli­cate his per­for­mance in the sec­ond pe­ri­od be­fore he was re­placed in­jured by Bren­don Figuera in the 81st minute.

Garth Thomas al­so had a scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for Jabloteh be­fore the break but the right-back bun­dled a Bap­tiste cor­ner wide of goal at the back post.

And in the first of three min­utes of stop­page time af­ter 90 min­utes, Bap­tiste failed to seal the win in reg­u­la­tion time.

The 34-year-old for­mer Gold­en Boot win­ner and 2009 TT Pro League Play­er of the Year was de­nied by the legs of sub­sti­tute Kevin Rouse af­ter Fabi­an Reid played a neat pass across the area.

Two min­utes ear­li­er F. Reid test­ed Phillip from dis­tance but on­ly won a save out of the Civic goalie.

And be­fore that it was Civic that dom­i­nat­ed a por­tion of the game, led by a 59th minute strike from dis­tance by An­dre Tou­s­saint, which gave the Point Fortin sup­port­ers some­thing to cheer, af­ter Mat­tis went in­to full stretch to put it be­hind for a cor­ner.

But the sta­di­um erupt­ed in­to ex­cite­ment, with 20 min­utes left, when Pacheco's rock­et from 20 yards out hit the un­der­side of the cross­bar be­fore land­ing in­to Mat­tis' net to lev­el the score 1-1.

"That goal set us back a lit­tle bit," Mat­tis shared. "But we re­al­ly mo­ti­vat­ed to win."

Civic con­tin­ued with a neat string of pass­es five min­utes lat­er which end­ed with mid­field­er Akeem Red­head du­pli­cat­ing an ear­li­er at­tempt of his which flew wide of the far post.

"I think we could have won it on reg­u­la­tion time," said Pt Fortin Civic coach Reynold Car­ring­ton, whose side took away the run­ners-up $20,000 and medals, while for­ward Jamille Boatswain picked up the Most Goals Award with his three goals in the tour­na­ment.

"The mo­men­tum was with us and failed to cap­i­talise on the half chances that we had.

"I think the pain won't re­al­ly sink in just yet. Tonight it's go­ing to be a hard night. We owed our­selves a vic­to­ry... not just our com­mu­ni­ty. We have been work­ing hard but came up emp­ty hand­ed.

"The ef­fort was good but not good enough. It was a good fi­nal. I think from the be­gin­ning of the com­pe­ti­tion it was in­tense and very com­pet­i­tive. I think both teams that [reached the fi­nal] came out and let every­thing on the field and it was just un­for­tu­nate that we were the losers."

Car­ring­ton added that it is still im­por­tant that his side get pos­i­tive re­sults in two re­main­ing Dig­i­cel Pro League match­es be­fore the Christ­mas break. Jabloteh head coach Kei­th Jef­frey, mean­while, is now eye­ing a much big­ger prize in the 2014-2015 Dig­i­cel Pro League cham­pi­onship.

He said, "It's im­por­tant that the com­mu­ni­ty got some­thing. I know the San Juan com­mu­ni­ty have been long­ing for some suc­cess and [the Toy­ota Clas­sic ti­tle] has come at the right time. This vic­to­ry will pro­pel the team for­ward, mak­ing the play­ers be­lieve that they can go all the way. Be­cause the league is a close league, and you must be­lieve to win the league."

Jabloteh will re­turn to ac­tion in the league on Tues­day against crosstown ri­vals Cale­do­nia AIA from 6 pm at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Round One Match Day Sev­en while De­fence Force host Civic from 8 pm.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons W Con­nec­tion will meet Po­lice FC from 6 pm and at 8pm lead­ers Cen­tral FC en­ter­tains North East Stars.

Re­sults

Fri­day's Toy­ota Clas­sic fi­nal re­sult

Pt Fortin Civic 1 (An­dre Pacheco 70th) vs San Juan Jabloteh 1 (An­dell No­ray 3rd) - Jabloteh won 4-2 on penal­ty-kicks

Schools fi­nal

Pt Fortin East Sec­ondary 3 vs

San Juan North Sec­ondary 1?