Joshua Ma­son scored a for­tu­itous goal which proved enough as Fa­ti­ma Col­lege edged tre­ble-chas­ing St Bene­dict's Col­lege 1-0 to claim their first Tiger Tanks Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Co­ca-Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tle since 2005 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Wednes­day.

St Bene­dict's en­tered the con­test­ed as firm favourites to add to their Pre­mier Di­vi­sion 'Big-Four' Na­tion­al League and South Zone In­ter­col ti­tles, how­ev­er, it was not to be as an alert Ma­son cap­i­talised on a lapse in con­cen­tra­tion from the south­ern­ers de­fence to get what turned out to be the match-win­ner, and their first of the sea­son in three at­tempts against their op­po­nents, af­ter a 1-1 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion draw, and a 3-1 loss in the Na­tion­al In­ter­col fi­nal just over a month ago.

The Hut­son "Bar­ber" Charles-coached Fa­ti­ma had gone tro­phy-less for years, dat­ing back to 2005 when they de­feat­ed Sig­nal Hill for the Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tle, while St Bene­dict's last the Na­tion­al In­ter­col in 1998, a wait that will con­tin­ue for the Ran­dolph Boyce-coach La Ro­maine Li­ons.

Fa­ti­ma sig­nalled their in­ten­tions of turn­ing the tide of their south­ern ri­vals when a cor­ner from Aiden De Gannes was met with a glanc­ing head­er by Chaim Williams which just missed the far post with St Bene­dict's goal­keep­er Ne­sean Buck­mire root­ed to his goalline.

Sev­en min­utes lat­er Fa­ti­ma took the lead when a weak back pass from Keanu More­an to fel­low de­fend­er Joshua De­mas, was met by an even weak­er back pass to Buck­mire, with the ball tak­ing a wicked bounce be­fore his mis­cued clear­ance ric­o­chet off the out­side of his right booth to an on­rush­ing Fa­ti­ma strik­er Ma­son's up­per body and in­to the goal.

St Bene­dict's was then for­tu­nate to con­tin­ue the match with 11 men af­ter a ner­vous-look­ing De­mas was on­ly is­sued a yel­low card by ref­er­ee Niko­lai Ny­ron as the last de­fend­er af­ter hack­ing down Khi­ba Ro­many, who was about to storm in­to the 18-yard box with Buck­mire in wait­ing.

It was a shock lead that Fa­ti­ma would not have dreamt of, and their chances of adding to that tal­ly took a blow in the 30th minute when goalscor­er Ma­son was forced off due to med­ical com­pli­ca­tions and lat­er tak­en to hos­pi­tal, and re­placed by Kade Col­lier.

Two min­utes lat­er, St Bene­dict's who en­tered the match un­beat­en in two meet­ings with Fa­ti­ma fi­nal­ly had their first re­al at­tempt on goal through a counter-at­tack start­ed by cap­tain Tarik Lee, with Nicholas Bob­come spank­ing one-time left-foot­ed shot from a left-sided Je­re­mi­ah Niles cen­tre be­ing par­ried around the post by an alert Tris­tan Ed­wards in goal for Fa­ti­ma.

Six min­utes be­fore the half-time whis­tle, Fa­ti­ma wast­ed a gold­en chance to dou­ble their lead when a left-sided ef­fort from sub­sti­tute Col­lier was par­ried in­to the path of an un­marked Chaim Williams, but with the goal at his mer­cy, he volleyed his ef­fort down­wards in­to the turf, and wide of the tar­get.

Four min­utes in­to the sec­ond half Fa­ti­ma was on the of­fen­sive again with Ro­many get­ting his head to a flight­ed right-sided cross from Jesse Hospedales, but un­der a strong chal­lenge from Buck­mire, his ef­fort lobbed over cross bar.

Ro­many was at it again four min­utes lat­er with an ac­ro­bat­ic over­head at­tempt which had Buck­mire scam­per­ing to cov­er his left post and ush­er­ing the ball over the line for a goal kick.

At the oth­er end of the field, Darelle Gar­cia tried his luck with a spank­ing right-foot­ed free kick from the edge of the 18-yard box af­ter a han­dled ball by Fa­ti­ma's Hospedales, but his ef­fort was straight at goal­keep­er Ed­wards in the 60th minute.

Mean­while, Ma­son, who was sub­sti­tut­ed in the 30th-minute need­ed med­ical at­ten­tion. He was tak­en to West­shore Med­ical Hos­pi­tal where up to press time he was still ward­ed un­der the doc­tor's care.