Two goals from cap­tain Der­rel Gar­cia lift­ed ten-man St Bene­dict's Col­lege to a 2-0 vic­to­ry over East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary Schools in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­bal­League at the QRC Ground, Ser­pen­tine Road, Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day. 

The Mu­cu­rapo Road men were dogged in de­fence and held firm for most of the match, while al­so at­tempt­ing to play on the coun­ter­at­tack. How­ev­er, Gar­cia, a for­mer na­tion­al youth play­er who had been a thorn in the East Mu­cu­rapo side all af­ter­noon long, could not be stopped in the 59th minute, as he latched on a Cam'Ron Burke for­ward pass in the cen­tre of the pitch, and from some 20-plus yards out, Gar­cia un­leashed a thun­der­ous low dri­ve that caught Mu­cu­rapo goal­keep­er Or­lan­do Fran­cis strand­ed to the op­po­site side of the goal­post for a 1-0 ad­van­tage. 

The goal al­lowed the pre­mier di­vi­sion lead­ers to breathe eas­i­ly af­ter a goal­less first half in which they dom­i­nat­ed but couldn't find a way through the thick East Mu­cu­rapo de­fence. 

Ear­li­er in the 57th minute, the South­ern­ers may have got­ten the open­er from a neat build-up from left to right that land­ed at the feet of Burke on the left side when he hasti­ly de­liv­ered it air­borne for Josi­ah Ochoa on the right side, but the usu­al­ly clin­i­cal mid­field­er could not con­trol his at­tempt, hit­ting the ball high over the cross­bar. 

With East Mu­cu­rapo fac­ing rel­e­ga­tion, their at­tempts to of­fer at­tacks at St. Bene­dict's goal were foiled by an equal­ly dogged South­ern­ers de­fence. Still, with their at­tempts few and far in be­tween, the Dale Saun­ders-coached Mu­cu­rapo set­tled for the task of try­ing to con­tain Gar­cia and com­pa­ny with the score at 1-0. 

And they were suc­cess­ful in the 72nd minute as Ethan Trot­man gal­lopped on to a neat­ly thread­ed ball through the cen­tre, but chal­lenged by two de­fend­ers, Trot­man hit it over. 

How­ev­er, they could do noth­ing in the 81st minute when the tal­ent­ed Gar­cia used his speed to get ahead of two de­fend­ers and hit it pow­er­ful­ly past the Mu­cu­rapo cus­to­di­an for a 2-0 ad­van­tage. 

Late in the game though, East Mu­cu­rapo's Jay­den Lewis was put in the clear when St Bene­dict's de­fend­er Ac­k­eem James went to the ground as he at­tempt­ed to boot out a long pass aimed at Lewis. But with James slid­ing to the ground, he held on to Lewis, forc­ing ref­er­ee Jerome McIn­tyre to is­sue a red card. 

The card though came too late and could not help the Mu­cu­rapo men in the end. 

The win in­stead en­sured that St. Bene­dict's Col­lege main­tained a six-point ad­van­tage at the top while de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Fa­ti­ma Col­lege played to 2-2 draw with Spey­side at their home ground on Mu­cu­rapo Road, Port-of-Spain. 

SAT­UR­DAY'S RE­SULTS

East Mu­cu­rapo- 0 vs St Bene­dict's- 2 (Der­rel Gar­cia 59th, 81st)

Mal­ick - 1 (Jor­dan Fer­di­nand) vs Pre­sen­ta­tion- 3 (Isa­iah Ja­cob, Caleb Boyce, Josi­ah Bain)

Fa­ti­ma- 2 vs Spey­side- 2 (Micha Wal­ton 49th, Riquelme Phillips 73rd)

Mir­a­cle Min­istries- 1 (Kyle Hold­er) vs Sig­nal Hill- 1

Na­pari­ma- 2 (Is­rael Joseph, Jabari Ro­driguez) vs St Mary's Col­lege-0

St An­tho­ny's- 4 (An­dell Fras­er 2, Morde­cai Forde 2) vs QRC- 1 (Stephon James)

St Au­gus­tine- 1 (Abra­ham Kirk) vs San Juan- 1 (Ja­heim Dan­clair)

Trin­i­ty Col­lege- 1 (Khaleem Prince) vs Ari­ma North-1 (Zion Metivi­er)

Lat­est SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings

Pos Teams*P* W* D* L* F* A* Pts

1*St Bene­dict’s*10*9*1*0*18*6*28

2*Pre­sen­ta­tion*9*7*1*1*23*5*22

3*Fa­ti­ma*10*6*2*2*28*11*20

4*St An­tho­ny’s*9*6*0*3*21*10*18

5*Ari­ma North*10*4*6*0*18*5*18

6*Na­pari­ma*8*4*3*1*16*6*15

7*St Au­gus­tine*9*4*2*3*11*13*14

8*QRC*10*4*1*5*13*14*13

9*Mal­ick*9*3*3*3*18*19*11

10*San Juan North*10*3*1*6*16*18*10

11*St Mary’s*10*3*1*6*9*23*10

12*Sig­nal Hill*9*2*3*4*17*23*9

13*Trin­i­ty East*10*2*1*7*13*18*7

14*Spey­side*8*1*3*4*10*18*6

15*East Mu­cu­rapo*9*2*0*7*5*14*6

16*Mir­a­cle Min­istries*9*1*1*7*3*32*4