Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and Mu­cu­rapo East Sec­ondary will bat­tle for the North Zone boys' Un­der-17 ti­tle in the T&T Sec­ondary Schools Bas­ket­ball League at the Man­dela Park Bas­ket­ball Court in St Clair Port-of-Spain.

On Tues­day af­ter­noon, both teams held on to a nar­row two-point lead to seal their spots in the fi­nal set for to­day (March 23) at 4.15 pm.

In the first semi­fi­nals, Fa­ti­ma de­feat­ed Bel­mont Sec­ondary School 30-28 led by their cap­tain Jeda­iah King who net­ted 12 points on the evening. Coach Garvin War­wick cred­it­ed the vic­to­ry to young shoot­ing guard Idri­is Mar­tin, who stepped up to the task, fin­ish­ing with 12 points, knock­ing down two key three-point shots as well as hav­ing two key steals at the end of the game to hold off the run by Bel­mont.

In the sec­ond semi­fi­nal, the un­de­feat­ed South East Port-of-Spain (SE­POS) took on Mu­cu­rapo East Sec­ondary and the for­mer emerged with a 32-30 vic­to­ry. The boys from Mu­cu­rapo Road were not phased as they jumped to an ear­ly lead in the first half.

In the sec­ond half, Kaseem Prince of SE­POS hit three three-point shots to give them a one-point lead with un­der two min­utes to play. But it was Ka­reem Grant com­ing up with a key bas­ket to give Mu­cu­rapo the lead, that they held on to at the fi­nal buzzer. Grant was the top scor­er on the evening for Mu­cu­rapo with 13.

The win­ner of the fi­nal be­tween Fa­ti­ma and Mu­cu­rapo East will go on to rep­re­sent the North Zone at the Na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools Bas­ket­ball Cham­pi­onships next month.