Cale­do­nia AIA pulled off a stun­ning up­set on Fri­day night when it oust­ed de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and four-time win­ners Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion from the 2014/2015 Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl, 5-4 on penal­ty kicks af­ter an en­ter­tain­ing 3-3 draw at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.In the win­ner-take-all $100,000 fi­nal on May 29, at the same Cou­va venue, Cale­do­nia, tour­na­ment win­ners in 2008 and beat­en in the de­cider, both in 2009 and 2012, will come up against first-time fi­nal­ist Cen­tral FC, 1-0 win­ners over Po­lice in Fri­day's oth­er semi­fi­nal.

It will be the sec­ond time that Cen­tral and Cale­do­nia will be squar­ing off in a fi­nal af­ter the lat­ter won the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion FA fi­nal, 2-0 at Cou­va in 2013, to ru­in the "Sharks" pres­ti­gious ti­tle in their de­but sea­son.How­ev­er, at Cou­va on Fri­day it was the Jer­ry Moe-coached Cale­do­nia, dis­ap­point­ing eighth-placed league fin­ish­ers this sea­son which was on the tip of most spec­ta­tors' lips af­ter dump­ing W Con­nec­tion.

On the eve of the clash, a re­peat of their pre­vi­ous two quar­ter­fi­nal en­coun­ters, both won by W Con­nec­tion 3-1, Moe had stat­ed his team had much re­spect for its op­po­nent, but held no fear.It was W Con­nec­tion which struck as ear­ly as the third minute through de­fend­er Mekeil Williams, who ri­fled home past goal­keep­er Shemel Loui­son from in­side the six-yard box, off a re­bound.

It did not take Cale­do­nia too long to re­spond as Guyana in­ter­na­tion­al Per­nell Schultz got on the end of a right-sided cen­tre from Nathan Lewis to hit past Ju­lani Archibald for a 1-1 score af­ter on­ly 11 min­utes.Eight min­utes be­fore the half, Lewis was again the provider, this time for Ka­reem Joseph to fire past Archibald for a 2-1 lead which his team took in­to the break.

Cale­do­nia could not have asked for a bet­ter start to the sec­ond-half when vet­er­an mid­field­er, Con­rod Smith latched on­to a care­less pass in his own 18-yard box by W Con­nec­tion de­fend­er Alvin Jones and fired through the legs of de­fend­er Leslie Rusell on the goalline to ex­tend his team's ad­van­tage to 3-1 in the 56th and with­in sight of the fi­nals.

The "Savonet­ta Boys" still search­ing for a first do­mes­tic ti­tle this sea­son then mount­ed a late charge with Shan­non Gomez and Jo­mal Williams re­plac­ing Yhon Stiv­en Reyes Lopez and Neil Ben­jamin Jr in the 61st minute while Jones made way for Chris­t­ian Ro­driguez 11 min­utes lat­er.The changes soon brought re­ward for coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er as Gomez right-sided cross was turned in by Shah­don Win­ches­ter in the 78th minute to re­duce the score to 3-2.

Two min­utes from the fi­nal whis­tle, with Cale­do­nia hang­ing on by the thread, Gomez set up Ar­cia to net and lev­eled the match at 3-3 and send the con­test to penal­ties.Williams (M) start­ed off things for W Con­nec­tion by con­vert­ing his at­tempt while Joseph did like­wise for Cale­do­nia.Win­ches­ter then stepped up with W Con­nec­tion's next at­tempt, but looked on in dis­may as it ric­o­cheted off the base of the up­right to hand Cale­do­nia the ini­tia­tive which Pierre Hit­ner took full ad­van­tage of by scor­ing his ef­fort for a 2-1 lead.

The trio of Hashim Ar­cia, Williams (J) and Ger­ard Williams scored the re­main­ing three penal­ties for W Con­nec­tion, but Cale­do­nia trio Key­on Ed­wards, Nicholas Mar­cano and Jameel Nep­tune al­so found the tar­get to send their team to the fi­nal, its first in the com­pe­ti­tion since a 5-2 drub­bing from De­fence Force in the 2012 de­cider at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

...Plaza sends Cen­tral FC to fi­nal

The sec­ond semi­fi­nal failed to live up to the first en­counter as Cen­tral FC need­ed on­ly one goal from Willis Plaza to slip past last year's beat­en fi­nal­ist Po­lice FC and se­cure their spot in the fi­nal.

Plaza, who al­so net­ted the lone goal in his team's quar­ter­fi­nal win over De­fence Force, ham­mered home the win­ner six min­utes in­to the match past goal­keep­er Adri­an Fon­cette on his first post to ease off-field wor­ries of his team­mates who en­tered the match dis­tract­ed over promised bonus­es yet to be paid.

Re­sults

Cale­do­nia 3 (Per­nell Schultz 11th, Ka­reem Joseph 37th, Con­rod Smith 56th) vs W Con­nec­tion 3 (Mekeil Williams 3rd, Shah­don Win­ches­ter 78th, Hashim Ar­cia 88th) – Cale­do­nia won 5-4 on penal­ty-kicks

Cen­tral FC 1 (Willis Plaza 6th) vs Po­lice FC 0