Seon Ship­p­ley net­ted the lone goal as Na­pari­ma Col­lege edged San Juan North Sec­ondary 1-0 to move to with­in a point of re­tain­ing their Shell/First Cit­i­zens Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Pre­mi­er­ship Di­vi­sion ti­tle at Lewis Street, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day.

With the win, Na­pari­ma moved to 33 points from 13 match­es on the 15-team ta­ble, four ahead of St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, while Pre­sen­ta­tion stayed third de­spite drop­ping two valu­able points in a 1-1 draw with low­ly-placed Mal­ick Sec­ondary.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege still have an out­side chance of claim­ing the ti­tle but must beat Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege in their resched­uled match on Wednes­day ahead of the fi­nal round when they meet St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege next Sat­ur­day.

How­ev­er, Na­pari­ma, who face QRC in their fi­nal match on Sat­ur­day, will need on­ly a point from that match to be cer­tain of re­peat­ing as cham­pi­ons.

Yes­ter­day at Lewis Street, Na­pari­ma start­ed the brighter of both teams and wast­ed a great chance for the lead in­side the first ten min­utes when Ezekiel Ke­sar guid­ed a close-range ef­fort at the back post over­bar.

How­ev­er, in the 26th minute Ship­p­ley made no mis­take when he cap­i­talised on some slop­py play by stur­dy de­fend­er El­isha Gar­cia, who left his goalie Em­manuel John strand­ed in­side the six-me­tre box, leav­ing Ship­p­ley with the easy task of slot­ting in­to an open net for a 1-0 lead.

A minute be­fore the half-time whis­tle, San Juan North, who were caus­ing Na­pari­ma some prob­lems with their di­rect play, al­most drew lev­el when Chris­ton Mitchell broke in­to the 18-yard box on­ly to see his left-foot­ed ef­fort back across goa kept out by Naps goal­keep­er Levi Fer­nan­dez to pre­serve his team’s lead at the in­ter­val.

With the sun blaz­ing down on the un­even sur­face, both teams strug­gled to pick up the pace in the sec­ond-pe­ri­od un­til Na­pari­ma mid­field­er Mo­lik Khan’s right-foot­ed ef­fort was par­ried away by John in the 55th minute.

With­in the blink of an eye, it was San Juan North’s turn to squan­der a glar­ing chance when tal­is­man Re­nal­do Boyce’s slid­ing ef­fort at the far post from a pin-point Isa­iah Chase right-sided cross skimmed off the cross-bar.

Na­pari­ma sub­sti­tute Isa Bram­ble then wast­ed a gold­en chance to dou­ble his team’s lead when he blast­ed wide of the tar­get af­ter be­ing put through on goal in­side the 18-yard box by a clever chipped pass from Shoaib Khan.

With nine min­utes left in the match, Nathaniel Per­ouse then tried his luck from dis­tance but his dip­ping right-foot­ed vol­ley was tipped on­to the left post by a div­ing John be­fore be­ing cleared.

San Juan North then had one last chance to get a share of the points from a cor­ner deep in­to time added on. How­ev­er, Chase and Mitchell got in­to each oth­er’s way to let the hosts off the hook and now with­in touch­ing dis­tance of an­oth­er na­tion­al league ti­tle.

At the oth­er end of the ta­ble, Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka joined fel­low North Zone team St Mary’s Col­lege as the teams rel­e­gat­ed af­ter a 1-0 loss to Trin­i­ty Col­lege East at Mar­aval, with Ro­mario Ma­habir the play­er on tar­get.

With one match left to play, Trin­i­ty Mo­ka has sev­en points and are in 14th spot, six adrift of Mal­ick Sec­ondary.

Sat­ur­day’s Re­sults:

NA­PARI­MA 1 (Seon Ship­p­ley 26th) v SAN JUAN NORTH 0

ST AN­THO­NY’S 4 (Jean-Heem Mc Fee 2, Kiron Man­swell, Kai Phillip) v CARA­PICHAIMA 2 (Re­sean Brit­to, D Neils)

EAST MU­CU­RAPO 3 (Daniel Davis 3) v ST AU­GUS­TINE 2 (Tyrese Spicer, Tyreek York)

MAL­ICK 1 (Nick­ell Alexan­der) v PRE­SEN­TA­TION 1 (Jardel Sin­clair)

SPEY­SIDE 1 (Adriel George) v ST MARY’S 0

TRIN­I­TY EAST 1 (Ro­maro Ma­habir) v TRIN­I­TY MO­KA 0

ST BENE­DICT’S 1 (Ja­heem Joseph) v PLEAS­ANTVILLE 0

LAT­EST TEAM STAND­IN­GS

SCHOOLS*P*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD*PTS

1*Na­pari­ma*13*10*0*3*31*10*+21*33

2*St. An­tho­ny’s*13*9*2*2*41*17*+24*29

3*Pre­sen­ta­tion San F’do*12*8*1*3*27*7*+20*27

4*East Mu­cu­rapo*13*8*2*3*30*13*+17*27

5*Cara­pichaima East*13*6*3*4*24*20*+4*22

6*San Juan North*13*6*5*2*30*11*+19*20

7*QRC*12*6*4*1*22*26*-4*19

8*St. Bene­dict’s*13*5*7*1*15*21*-6*16

9*Trin­i­ty East*13*4*6*3*15*19*-4*15

10*St. Au­gus­tine*13*3*5*5*31*27*+4*14

11*Pleas­antville*13*4*7*2*15*18*-3*14

12*Spey­side*13*4*7*2*19*37*-18*14

13* Mal­ick*14*4*8*2*20*27*-7*13

14*Trin­i­ty Mo­ka*13*2*10*1*16*42*-26*7

15*St. Mary’s*13*1*11*1*5*44*-39*4

Up­com­ing match­es:

All kick off at 3.30pm

Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 30:

East Mu­cu­rapo v Spey­side, Fa­ti­ma Grd, Mu­cu­rapo Road

Pleas­antville v St Au­gus­tine, Yolande Pom­pey Grd, Pleas­antville

St Mary’s vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka, St Mary’s Grd, St Clair

Pre­sen­ta­tion v QRC, Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la

Trin­i­ty East v Cara­pichaima East, Trin­i­ty East

Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 2:

QRC v Na­pari­ma, QRC Grd, St Clair

St An­tho­ny’s v Pre­sen­ta­tion, West­moor­ings

St Bene­dict’s v San Juan North, Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la