Tier I leader of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL), De­fence Force, is show­ing no signs of let­ting up in its pur­suit of the ti­tle.

On Fri­day at the Phase II Recre­ation Ground in La Hor­quet­ta, the De­fence Force Elites got goals from Brent Sam and As­sim Kel­lar, as well as a wel­comed item from the boot of speedy strik­er Re­on Moore, who spent the last sea­son with Pa­cif­ic FC in the Cana­di­an Foot­ball League, to beat San Juan Jabloteh, 3-1.

Moore's re­turn to his pre­vi­ous club at the last trans­fer win­dow reaped ben­e­fits for the Army/Coast Guard/Civil­ian com­bi­na­tion team, which is yet to taste de­feat for the sea­son.

The lanky fig­ure of Sam, who was a mem­ber of coach Dwight Yorke's team, which earned a qual­i­fy­ing berth for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da, over Cu­ba in two match­es 2-1 and 4-0, opened the scor­ing for the De­fence Force in the 29th minute.

But Jabloteh, which fea­tures school­boy sen­sa­tion Der­rel Gar­cia, lev­elled the score thanks to Eli­jah Seechan in the 36th minute, a goal that sent the teams to the break in­sep­a­ra­ble af­ter 45 min­utes.

The dead­lock last­ed 21 min­utes af­ter the re­sump­tion of play as the De­fence Force unit re­stored its one-goal ad­van­tage and it came from Kel­lar, who found the net in the 69th minute. The San Juan-based team tried for the equalis­er a sec­ond time but were even­tu­al­ly left heart­bro­ken when Moore scored his team's third item of the night in the 75th minute which end­ed the Jabloteh fight in the re­main­ing mo­ments.

The re­sult pushed De­fence Force fur­ther ahead on the 12-team stand­ing to 39 points, 15 points ahead of sec­ond-placed AC Port-of-Spain (24 points), which faces Cale­do­nia AIA to­day at the Ken Cooke Ground of the Po­lice Bar­racks on Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James.

With Jabloteh re­main­ing in the third po­si­tion with 24 points, fourth-place MIC Cen­tral FC Re­boot, who are al­so on 24 points, were ex­pect­ed to lift them­selves af­ter last night's sched­uled meet­ing with bot­tom-of-the-ta­ble Ea­gles FC at the Ari­ma Velo­drome.

Mean­while, in the oth­er match on Fri­day, Club San­do got a soli­tary item from the boot of Luke Phillips in 90+4-minute to seal a 1-0 win over La Hor­quet­ta Rangers.

Re­sults

De­fence Force 3 (Brent Sam 29th, As­sim Kel­lar 69th, Re­on Moore 75th) vs Jabloteh 1 (Eli­jah Seechan 36th)

Club San­do 1 (Luke Phillips 90+4) vs La Hor­quet­ta Rangers 0

To­day's match­es

Venue: Ken Cooke Grd, St James Po­lice Bar­racks.

Po­lice vs 1976 FC Phoenix, 5 pm

Cale­do­nia AIA vs vs AC PoS, 7 pm

Lat­est Stand­ings

Pos*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1*De­fence Force FC*13*13*0*0*48*13*35*39

2*AC PoS*12*7*3*2*28*14*14*24

3*Jabloteh*13*7*3*3*30*21*9*24

4*Cen­tral FC*12*8*0*4*33*24*9*24

5*Po­lice FC*12*7*1*4*37*21*16*22

6*Cale­do­nia AIA*12*6*1*5*21*25*-4* 19

7*Club San­do*13*5*3*5*21*16*5*18

8*L. H Rangers*13*3*4*6*22*25*-3*13

9*1976 Phoenix*12*3*3*6*18*25*-7*12

10*Prison Ser­vice*12*1*3*8*12*26*-14*6

11*Point Fortin Civic*12*2*0*10*12*32*-20*6

12*Ea­gles FC*12*1*1*10*10*50*-40*4

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