The ‘Di­al Dy­namos’ of Ari­ma sig­nalled an ear­ly warn­ing in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) SporTT Boys’ Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion by thrash­ing Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do 3-0, at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Union Mara­bel­la Wednes­day.

At Fa­ti­ma Ground on Mu­cu­rapo Road, in Port-of-Spain, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege foot­baller Ja­haem Bai­ley net­ted the sea­son’s first hat-trick that helped his team to a com­fort­able 4–1 vic­to­ry over Mal­ick Sec­ondary School.

How­ev­er, in the fea­ture match of the day’s fix­tures, Ari­ma North set­tled quick­ly in the en­counter un­der the watch­ful eyes of Wayne Shep­pard on a silky smooth Man­ny Ramjohn pitch in Mara­bel­la, and de­spite the loss of a few play­ers from their pre­vi­ous sea­son, the ‘Di­al Dy­namos’, as they are com­mon­ly known, looked com­fort­able in at­tack and steady in de­fence, a form that saw them as­sume more pos­ses­sion of the ball in the ear­ly mo­ments.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, the 2025 South Zone In­ter­Col fi­nal­ist, though, was slow­er at the start. For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the South­ern­ers were forced to do with­out coach Shawn Coop­er due to an in­def­i­nite sus­pen­sion for a safe­guard­ing breach.

In­flu­en­tial Ari­ma strik­er Michael John prod­ded at the pre­sen­ta­tion de­fence ear­ly, un­til they al­lowed him to dis­play his mag­ic in the 22nd minute. From a clear­ance from a free kick by the Ari­ma de­fence in the 21st minute, the ball fell nice­ly in the path of John, who made use of it by tak­ing it all the way in­to the Pre­sen­ta­tion goal area be­fore slot­ting it be­yond the on­rush­ing goal­keep­er Marce­lo Phillip in­to the goal for the 1-0 ad­van­tage.

The goal boost­ed the Ari­ma con­fi­dence, and in the 29th minute they might have had an­oth­er, af­ter Je­di­ah David was slow to re­spond to a through­ball that was served to him in­side the Pres penal­ty area, but Phillip was quick to in­ter­cept it.

The South­ern­ers, af­ter a slow build-up that end­ed at the cor­ner, would rue their mis­for­tunes, as Josi­ah Stew­art tow­ered high to meet a left-side cor­ner on his head, on­ly for goal­keep­er Jared Wheel­er to push it wide of the post be­fore the ref­er­ee could send the teams to the half­time in­ter­val.

Still, mis­for­tunes fol­lowed them up­on their re­turn to the field. Strik­er Joshua Ryce dashed in­side to in­ter­cept an er­rant back pass by Ari­ma de­fend­er Ja­van Smith, but his left-foot­ed shot was saved by the Ari­ma cus­to­di­an in the 46th minute.

Ten min­utes lat­er, the South­ern­ers had an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty at the equalis­er when Os­hea Wat­son lift­ed a free kick for Aden Mon­tano at the back post, but again Wheep­er pushed it wide to pre­serve the Ari­ma ad­van­tage.

‘Pres’, cheered on by their noisy rhythm sec­tion, sought to en­cour­age their play­ers, but in­stead it was the Di­al Dy­namos that re­spond­ed with detri­men­tal ef­fect. Lanky strik­er Je­di­ah David should have scored af­ter be­ing put through the Pre­sen­ta­tion de­fence in the 67th minute.

David twice went past the un­rush­ing goal­keep­er, but still with the goal at his mer­cy, he fired it high over the cross­bar, much to the dis­may of the Ari­ma sup­port­ers.

But David did not give up, and af­ter he shook him­self loose in the Pres at­tack­ing area, he un­leashed a thump­ing shot that crashed against the Pres cross­bar be­fore it bounced to safe­ty.

The game seemed to be head­ing for a 1-0 win for Ari­ma un­til sub­sti­tute Jae­den Samuel, with prob­a­bly on­ly his sec­ond touch of the ball, dou­bled their ef­fort with a thump­ing shot that fired low in­to the Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege goal in the 82nd minute.

Still, it was not over un­til David had his say. The lanky strik­er raced on to a loft­ed ball at the top of the Pres penal­ty area and hit it one-time with the left foot low past Marce­lo Phillip for a 3-0 vic­to­ry for the east­ern­ers. The win sent a stern warn­ing to the rest of the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion teams that their eight-place fin­ish last year would be a thing of the past.

Yes­ter­day’s Re­sults

QRC 0 vs Spey­side 0

Ari­ma Sec­ondary School 3 (Michael John, Jae­den Samuel, Je­di­ah David) vs Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San F’do 0

Fa­ti­ma 4 (Ja­heam Bai­ley 3, Jor­dan Grant) vs Mal­ick 1

Sig­nal Hill 3 (Ackim Dun­can, Siel Mills, J’meke Wat­son) vs Mu­cu­rapo West 0

St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege vs Hillview Col­lege (post­poned)

CIC 3 (Jay­lon Man­swell, Deron Black­man, Nadeem Grant) vs St Au­gus­tine 0

Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 2 vs San Juan North 1 (Gabriel Brit­to)

St Bene­dict’s Col­lege 5 (Jay­lon Forbes 2, Orande Par­ris 2, Josi­ah Hug­gins) vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka 0