St Mary's College and Bishop Anstey High School captured the Open Boys and Girls Division titles when the 2020 Republic Bank-sponsored National Secondary Schools Water Polo League concluded at the National Aquatic Centre in Balmain, Couva on Sunday.
Both finals failed to live up to the hype though as both the "Saints" and Bishop Anstey won their respective crowns with relative ease, 16-6 and 13-7 against Fatima College and St Joseph Convent (Port-of-Spain) respectively.
In the Boys' Open decider, the Justin Bodden-coached "Saints" stormed into a 5-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, and despite a fight-back from Fatima in the second period, led comfortably at the half-time interval, 8-4.
The third quarter proved to be very decisive in the outcome with the Saints dominating 4-1 to push their advantage to 12-5 before outscoring their rivals by the same margin in the final period to complete their task.
Bishop Anstey also made a rousing start to the Girls Open championship match and led 5-1 at the end of the first quarter before extending it to 7-2 during the second period.
The third was a low scoring period with Bishop Anstey under the supervision of coach Ethan Elliot adding two goals to their tally while keeping their opponents scoreless before adding four more in the final quarter to St Joseph Convent's two.
St Joseph Convent (PoS) had much better fortune in their three divisional finals played earlier on Saturday and Sunday, sweeping the Form One, Under-14 and Under-16 age-groups crowns to the delight of head coaches Jameel Atteih and Justin Bodden who coached both the Under-14 and Under-16 teams.
In the Form One final, St Joseph Convent edged Bishop Anstey 4-3 while they eked out a 12-11 golden-goal win after an 11-all finish to win their best-of-three round-robin series against the same opponents following an 11-8 win in the first match.
And in the Under-16 decider, they thumped Bishop Anstey 10-1.
Fatima College and coach Ryan West also had reasons to celebrate on the day after they won the Form One and Under-14 Division finals in contrasting fashion.
The Mucurapo Road-based Fatima 'A' powered past St Mary's College 10-4 to take home the Form One title while in the Under-14 duel, Fatima defeated Queen's Royal College 4-1 on penalties after both teams battled to an entertaining 10-10 deadlock.
The Royalians did not leave the venue without precious golden silverware as they made amends in the Under-16 Boys final, with a narrow 5-4 sudden-death penalty shoot-out victory over their "Saints" rival after clawing their way back from 3-1, 5-2 and 7-5 quarter deficits to draw 8-8 at full-time.