Ste­fan Came­jo was not sure he could top Sheris­sa Red­head’s per­for­mance in the se­nior cat­e­go­ry of the Ju­nior So­ca Monarch at the Jean Pierre Com­plex yes­ter­day.

The judges agreed that he couldn’t beat it but still felt he was able to match it, as Came­jo and Red­head were named joint win­ners with 220 points each.

“Sheris­sa, she de­serves it be­cause I watched her per­for­mance and (winces) I gonna come first this time boy?” Came­jo, who copped his fifth con­sec­u­tive ju­nior So­ca Monarch ti­tle (first in se­nior cat­e­go­ry), said af­ter­wards.

Red­head, 15, of St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, had her school­mates wav­ing red, white and black flags in uni­son in the crowd as she sang I Luv Meh Car­ni­val, which pro­claimed an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“You re­al­ly have to go out there and find it your­self, ac­tu­al­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing all of this to ac­tu­al­ly have the re­al emo­tion, gen­uine emo­tion about it. You know, go­ing out on the road. J’Ou­vert. Watch­ing it,” Red­head told the T&T Guardian af­ter­wards, say­ing she was con­fi­dent the song was a win­ner from the time she first heard it.

But 14-year-old Came­jo’s call to Raise Up the tem­per­a­ture of the cold-heart­ed at­ti­tude that seemed to per­vade the coun­try with re­gard to the crime sit­u­a­tion did enough to score well with the judges as well.

There was al­so a tie for third place in the se­nior cat­e­go­ry, with St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege’s Shakir Hare­wood and Rio Claro East Sec­ondary stu­dent Shinell Mo­hammed both scor­ing 217 points.

Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ri­val­do Lon­don was list­ed among the se­niors but did not take part in the fi­nal.

In the ju­nior cat­e­go­ry, nine-year-old Sekel Mc In­tosh’s en­er­getic and in­ven­tive per­for­mance of We Back on The Road did just enough to hold off 11-year-old Shar­la Grant’s com­mand­ing per­for­mance of Cah Hold Me Back. Mc In­tosh scored 227 points while Grant, of Low­er Cu­mu­to Gov­ern­ment, scored 225. Fran­cois Sylvester, of St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege and Kaiel Loui­son, of Cou­va West Sec­ondary, placed third and fourth with 211 and 203 points re­spec­tive­ly.

“I am very hap­py and ex­cit­ed be­cause it is on­ly my first time com­pet­ing in a So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion and I’m very hap­py about it,” said Mc In­tosh, who had been per­form­ing ca­lyp­so for the past four years at Ari­ma Boys’ Gov­ern­ment.