NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Justin Gar­cia scored his fifth goal of the sea­son to lead De­fence Force to a vi­tal 1-0 win over Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, in the first match of a T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League dou­ble-head­er at the St James Po­lice Train­ing Grounds, Long Cir­cu­lar, yes­ter­day.

With the win, the Hut­son “Bar­ber” Charles-coached Army/Coast-Guard com­bi­na­tion strength­ened its claim for a top-three po­si­tion with 37 points from 15 match­es, two adrift of lead­ers AC Port-of-Spain, and one be­hind the sec­ond-placed Tiger Tanks Club San­do.

The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion was giv­en a May 28 dead­line to se­lect the three lo­cal clubs to com­pete in the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Club Shield (two clubs), and the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Cup.

How­ev­er, the de­feat for Rangers was a se­vere blow to its top three hopes as it re­mained in the fourth spot on the 12-club stand­ings with 31 points fol­low­ing a sec­ond straight loss, but with a match in hand against Po­lice card­ed for May 22.

Af­ter an even­ly matched first 30 min­utes, De­fence Force was hand­ed the chance to take the lead in the 35th when Rangers de­fend­er Caleb Sturge bun­dled over Jameel Coop­er in the 18-yard box fol­low­ing a through ball from Dwight Quin­tero.

Gar­cia then stepped up and fired his team ahead from the spot, with his left-foot­ed penal­ty kick go­ing in off the base of the left post to help ease team­mate Coop­er’s pain. Coop­er was even­tu­al­ly sub­sti­tut­ed with Ri­val­do Cory­at tak­ing his place fol­low­ing the col­li­sion with Sturge.

Quin­tero then wast­ed a chance to dou­ble his team’s ad­van­tage on the stroke of half­time, when he blast­ed a left-foot­ed ef­fort over­bar from in­side the 18-yard box af­ter be­ing picked out by Re­on Moore, fol­low­ing a ma­raud­ing run on the right side by the T&T winger.

In the sec­ond half, both teams failed to cre­ate any re­al chances with Rangers mi­nus the in­jured Re­al Gill, and some­what of a puz­zling start­ing line-up fail­ing to trou­ble the De­fence Force back­line and goal­keep­er Christo­pher Bigette, thus falling to a sec­ond straight loss, af­ter its shock 2-3 de­feat to Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA on Sat­ur­day last.

In the sec­ond match last night, vis­i­tors' Cen­tral FC got a 78th minute strike from for­mer na­tion­al youth play­er Anslem Jack­son to eke out a 1-0 win over Po­lice FC, bol­ster­ing its hold on the fifth spot with 25 points from 15 match­es.  They are now six ahead of the law­men, who have an out­stand­ing match against Rangers to be played on Mon­day, at the La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground.

TUES­DAY’S RE­SULTS

De­fence Force (Justin Gar­cia 35th pen) vs La Hor­quet­ta Rangers – 0

Cen­tral FC 1 (Anslem Jack­son 78th) vs Po­lice FC – 0

LAT­EST TEAM STAND­ING

Place Team P W D L F A Pts

1 AC PoS 15 13 0 2 40 10 39

2 Club San­do FC 15 12 2 1 34 13 38

3 De­fence Force 15 12 1 2 34 10 37

4 L.H Rangers 14 10 1 3 39 17 31

5 Cen­tral FC 15 8 1 6 27 23 25

6 Po­lice FC 14 6 1 7 25 25 19

7 W Con­nec­tion 15 5 3 7 14 19 18

8 Pt Fortin Civic 15 3 3 9 9 18 12

9 Mor­vant Cale­do­nia 15 3 2 10 16 35 11

10 Pris­ons Ser­vice FC 15 3 2 10 8 35 11

11 Jabloteh 15 2 2 11 15 34 8

12 Cunu­pia FC 15 2 2 11 8 30 8

LEAD­ING GOALSCOR­ERS

13 – Nathaniel James (Club San­do)

10 – Ataulla Guer­ra (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers)

8 – Brent Sam (De­fence Force)

7 – John-Paul Rochford (AC PoS)

6 – Ty­rone Charles (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Nicholas Dil­lon (Club San­do), Du­ane Muck­ette, Che Ben­ny (AC PoS),  Keron Cum­mings (Cen­tral FC)

5 – Dwight Jor­dan (Jabloteh), Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Ke­sean St Rose (Cen­tral FC), Jameel Nep­tune, Jo­moul Fran­cois (AC PoS), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force).

UP­COM­ING MATCH­ES

Fri­day, May 19:

De­fence Force vs Pris­ons Ser­vice FC, La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, 5 pm

La Hor­quet­ta Rangers vs Cen­tral FC, La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, 7:15 pm

Sat­ur­day, May 20:

AC Port-of-Spain vs Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA, St James Po­lice Bar­racks, 5 pm

Po­lice FC vs Cunu­pia FC, St James Po­lice Bar­racks, 7:15 pm

Sun­day, May 21:

W Con­nec­tion vs Club San­do, Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, Point Fortin, 4 pm

Point Fortin Civic vs San Juan Jabloteh, Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, Point Fortin, 6:15 pm