Cana­di­an-born T&T in­ter­na­tion­al Fed­eri­co Pe­na was named Man of the Match while a won­der goal from team-mate Austin Ric­ci was all that sep­a­rat­ed Val­our FC from Forge FC Sun­day af­ter­noon.

Both sides en­tered with laun­dry lists of in­juries and, as ex­treme heat swel­tered the pitch at The Kick­off pre­sent­ed by Volk­swa­gen, it made for a some­what tame af­fair.

Forge winger Chris Nan­co, who wore the cap­tain’s arm­band, came the clos­est in the first half with a loop­ing head­er cleared ac­ro­bat­i­cal­ly off the line by Val­our de­fend­er An­drew Jean Bap­tiste.

Austin Ric­ci broke the dead­lock ten min­utes af­ter half­time with noth­ing short of a won­der strike.

The cen­tre-for­ward pinged a shot off of the in­side of the post from the top of the box, giv­ing the hosts the ad­van­tage and left Hamil­ton in search of an equal­iz­er.

The win was the fourth in five match­es for 22-year-old Pe­na, who made his T&T de­but in the 7-0 friend­ly loss to the USA ear­li­er this year, and his Val­our team-mates to lead the ta­ble with 12 points, two ahead of Pa­cif­ic FC while Cal­vary Fc is third with sev­en points, and forge, fourth with six points, ahead of Atleti­co Ot­tawa on goal-dif­fer­ence.

York Unit­ed is sev­enth, while HFX Wan­der­ers and Ed­mon­ton FC share sev­enth and eighth spots with four points each from four match­es each.

On Sat­ur­day, na­tion­al duo, mid­field­er An­dre Ram­per­sad and strik­er Akeem Gar­cia both played the full 90 min­utes as the HFX Wan­der­ers FC took down FC Ed­mon­ton 2-1 in swel­ter­ing af­ter­noon heat at IG Field in Win­nipeg.

As­sis­tant Mesut Mert who is in charge of the team while T&T-born Stephen Hart is on med­ical leave, field­ed a top-heavy team, start­ing at­tack­ers Joao Morel­li, Ste­fan Kara­jo­vanovic, Alex Mar­shall, last year’s top scor­er Gar­cia, and Cory Bent – with the for­mer sur­pris­ing as a left full­back.

An ear­ly goal from Joao Morel­li against the run of play gave the Wan­der­ers a foot­ing. A spir­it­ed run and cross from Morey Don­er gave the Brazil­ian his team’s first on the sea­son. Morel­li’s sec­ond fol­lowed ear­ly in the sec­ond half, lift­ing the Wan­der­ers to a two-goal lead.

FC Ed­mon­ton’s Fras­er Aird brought one back ten min­utes lat­er with a neat out­side-the-box fin­ish. They near­ly scored an­oth­er, if it wasn’t for a late goalline clear­ance from Bent, an ac­tion that en­sured the Wan­der­ers’ first win on the sea­son.

Across the bor­der in the USA, for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-20 de­fend­er Luke Singh played the full 90 min­utes in cen­tral de­fence as cel­lar-placed Toron­to Fc edged ta­ble lead­ers New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion 3-2 in their US Ma­jor League Soc­cer East­ern Con­fer­ence clash on Thurs­day, at Gillette Sta­di­um, Foxbor­ough, Mass­a­chu­setts.

Nick De Loen, the son of ex-T&T stand­out Leroy De Leon came off the bench or Toron­to in the 73rd minute to re­place Japan’s Tsub­asa En­doh.

In oth­er match­es, Philadel­phia Union, the club of Cana­da-born T&T goal­keep­er bat­tled to a 1-1 draw with New York Red Bulls on Fri­day, and a day lat­er de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Colum­bus Crew, the club of T&T in­ter­na­tion­al Kevin Moli­no, who is on Con­ca­caf Gold Cup du­ty ral­lied for a 2-2 draw at Cincin­nati FC.

In the Unit­ed Soc­cer League Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, wing-back Shan­non Gomez helped Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic to a goal­less draw with Oak­land Roots in their bot­tom of the ta­ble match-up on Thurs­day.

Out-of-favour na­tion­al mid­field­er Le­ston Paul fea­tured for Mem­phis 901 FC in their 1-0 tri­umph against Birm­ing­ham Le­gion while Gomez was back in ac­tion again in Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic’s 2-0 loss to Or­ange Coun­ty on Sat­ur­day.