Na­tion­al Un­der-20 winger Der­rel "Zoom Zoom" Gar­cia scored a goal in each half as St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege end­ed their 26-year Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Na­tion­al Co­ca-Co­la In­ter­col ti­tle wait with a 2-0 win over 2022 win­ners Fa­ti­ma Col­lege at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va on Thurs­day. 

The win by the Ran­dolph Boyce-coached St. Bene­dict's Col­lege added to their SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion ti­tle as well as the South Zone In­ter­col crown while deny­ing Fa­ti­ma Col­lege a third ti­tle this sea­son af­ter the lat­ter won the sea­son-open­ing NGC Su­per Cup, 2-1 over Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do., and the North Zone In­ter­col. 

The nip­py Gar­cia fired St. Bene­dict's Col­lege in­to the lead in the 16th minute when he latched on­to a clever pass from about 15 yards by Josi­ah Ochoa, af­ter drift­ing wide of his mark­er Bar­ring­ton, and af­ter bring­ing the ball un­der con­trol on the third at­tempt, he slipped his right-foot­ed ef­fort in­to the far cor­ner past goal­keep­er Shameal O’Bri­an.

De­spite play­ing with­out the sus­pend­ed Ca­den Tre­strail, the scor­er of a dou­ble in their 3-2 semi­fi­nal win over San Juan North Sec­ondary in mid­week, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege cre­at­ed a few chances main­ly through Michael Chaves.

How­ev­er, with St. Bene­dict's Col­lege de­fence mar­shalled by Adam Pierre in a no-non­sense mood, Chaves and his team­mates found it hard to break the south­ern­ers back­line.

In fact, Chaves had to try his luck from a dis­tance, and when he did man­age to beat a full-stretch div­ing De­venish, the right up­right came to St. Bene­dict's res­cue.

With the min­utes tick­ing away, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege pushed play­ers for­ward in search of the equalis­er. They were caught on the coun­ter­at­tack with Gar­cia run­ning on­to a pass over the tap to beat O'Bri­an low to his right to put the ic­ing on the win in the fourth minute of time added on at the end of full time.

The win end­ed a 25-year wait for St. Bene­dict's Col­lege, se­cur­ing a first na­tion­al In­ter­col crown since 1998, and al­so avenged a 1-0 loss to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege in the 2022 fi­nal while they were al­so beat­en 1-0 by East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary in the 2014 de­cider.