Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stand­out Michael Chaves and J’Eleisha Alexan­der of Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary were named as the 2023 Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Boys’ and Girls’ “Play­ers of the Year” (PO­TY), re­spec­tive­ly, when the an­nu­al end-of-sea­son awards was held at the Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce, Cam­den Road, Cou­va, Thursday.

Chaves along with fel­low ‘Top Five Play­er of the Year’ award re­cip­i­ent Chris­t­ian Bai­ley and goal­keep­er Tris­tan Ed­wards, all mem­bers of the Boys All Star team were in­stru­men­tal in Fa­ti­ma Col­lege cap­tur­ing their first na­tion­al league ti­tle in 45 years and their third na­tion­al league crown af­ter lift­ing their first ti­tle in 1973.

A mem­ber of the na­tion­al Un­der-20 team at the CON­CA­CAF U-20 Cham­pi­onship held in T&T and se­nior team debu­tant against Ja­maica as well, Chaves scored 13 goals and added ten as­sists as Fa­ti­ma Col­lege topped the 16-team Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings with 40 points, five more than de­throned win­ners St Bene­dict’s Col­lege.

In ad­di­tion to Fa­ti­ma duo Chaves and Bai­ley, na­tion­al U-20 cap­tain and mid­field­er Lin­dell Sween (San Juan North Sec­ondary), goal­keep­er Kanye Lazarus (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San Fer­nan­do) and strik­er Oba Samuel (Mal­ick Sec­ondary) were se­lect­ed as the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion Boys’ “Top Five Play­ers of the Year”.

Mean­while, Oba Samuel of Mal­ick Sec­ondary was named 'Gold­en Boot' win­ner with 13 goals.

Chaves who suf­fered a bro­ken leg in a T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League match for Queen’s Park Crick­et Club against MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed ear­ly last month said, “I be­lieve it was a suc­cess­ful sea­son for me and the school.”

He added, “I got 13 goals and ten as­sists and I’m just grate­ful and would like to thank all my coach­es, fam­i­ly, friends and my team­mates for the sup­port be­cause with­out them it wouldn’t re­al­ly have been pos­si­ble.”

Re­flect­ing on his se­nior na­tion­al team ap­pear­ance af­ter be­ing called by coach An­gus Eve for the friend­ly se­ries against Ja­maica, Chaves said, “It was just a great ex­pe­ri­ence, and a great learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and I think that it mo­ti­vat­ed me more than ever to re­al­ly just keep go­ing and achieve greater things, and I know that I will be back bet­ter than be­fore.”

Con­cern­ing his re­cov­ery from the bro­ken limb, Chaves said he would have surgery in two weeks to get him­self back to walk­ing again.

“From there, it’ll just be about re­cov­ery and how soon I can get back on the field, but at the same time, I would say that the sup­port I have got­ten dur­ing this time has been amaz­ing and a lot of love and over­all it’s been great. So many peo­ple have reached out to me and I’m just grate­ful for the sup­port,” said Chaves.

Alexan­der, who led Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary to the SS­FL Girls Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion Na­tion­al “Big-Five” crown, had a much tougher fight on her hands in lift­ing the girls’ top in­di­vid­ual ac­co­lade as she man­aged to get the nod ahead of record-goal scor­er Niki­ta Go­sine of Pleas­antville Sec­ondary who net­ted 57 goals on the sea­son in help­ing her team to the Co­ca-Co­la Na­tion­al Girls In­ter-Col crown af­ter sweep­ing the South Zone ti­tles.

An elat­ed Alexan­der, who al­so won the top award in 2022, on col­lect­ing her award said, “I feel very hap­py to be win­ning this award two times in a row.

“I will like to thank my par­ents and team­mates and my coach­es as well as the sea­son was a good one and it was re­al­ly nice for us to come out on top again in the SS­FL ‘Big-Five’ com­pe­ti­tion and we will be back next year to try and win a third straight ti­tle.

She added, “Per­son­al­ly, I rep­re­sent­ed all the na­tion­al teams pos­si­ble dur­ing the sea­son as well and I will like to con­tin­ue on that same path in hav­ing suc­cess both at the SS­FL lev­el, and na­tion­al teams.”

The oth­er “Top Five Play­ers of the Year” among the girls were Lu­ann Craig (Five Rivers Sec­ondary), Talia Mar­tin (Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary) and Dex­tra Har­ris al­so of Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary.

Look­ing ahead to the 2024 sea­son, SS­FL pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les said plans were afoot for the com­menc­ing of the Girls Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, putting ma­chin­ery in place to as­sist with the reg­is­tra­tion process of teams, hav­ing a ful­ly op­er­a­tional web­site of the league, the con­tin­ued dis­cus­sion with re­gards to the start of fut­sal, beach soc­cer and E-sports com­pe­ti­tions among schools as well as re­vamp­ing the SS­FL All Stars game and es­tab­lish­ing an SS­FL theme song.

With re­gards to the Form One League, Gon­za­les said ef­forts were be­ing made to have a Girls U-13 League in which any play­er un­der the age of 13, no mat­ter what form they are in will be al­lowed to play as com­pared to the U-13 Boys’ com­pe­ti­tion which is geared to­wards Form One stu­dents.

Not to be left out, the SS­FL boss not­ed that ef­forts are be­ing made to have cours­es where­by some of the stu­dent ath­letes can be­come ref­er­ees while al­so in­creas­ing the num­ber of ed­u­ca­tion­al cours­es for coach­es in the SS­FL with the help of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.