Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice and San Juan Jabloteh strength­ened their po­si­tions for a spot in ei­ther the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup or the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Shield for the re­spec­tive sec­ond-placed and third-placed teams in Tier 1 of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL), with vic­to­ries when ac­tion re­sumed on Fri­day at the Phase II Recre­ation Ground in La Hor­quet­ta.

The Law­men of the Po­lice Ser­vice out­gunned Cale­do­nia AIA in the open­ing match 3-2, cour­tesy of a dou­ble strike from na­tion­al mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones that moved them to 36 points, but still in third po­si­tion on the ta­ble.

Ka­reem Fre­itas pushed Po­lice ahead 1-0 af­ter just 13 min­utes, on­ly for Jones to shake up the Mor­vant men even more, with his brace in the 35th and 39th min­utes that hand­ed the Po­lice­men a 3-0 ad­van­tage head­ing in­to the halfway in­ter­val.

How­ev­er, Cale­do­nia, who start­ed the sea­son strong­ly be­fore a dip in form, pushed them down the 12-team stand­ings, show­ing a dis­play of the grit that fired them amongst the top three teams ear­ly in the sea­son, to close the gap on their ri­vals.

First­ly, Kiron Man­swell turned up on the doorstep to re­duce the score­line to 3-1 in the 55th minute, and with the game head­ing for a 3-1 Po­lice vic­to­ry, Josi­ah Shade found the net on the stroke of reg­u­la­tion time but still missed out on a share of the points.

In the oth­er match, re­cent school­boy sen­sa­tion Lin­dell Sween hand­ed Jabloteh the ad­van­tage with the goal of the match in the 29th minute of a 3-0 vic­to­ry over Ea­gles FC, which threat­ened to over­shad­ow Eli­jah Seechan's dou­ble strike for the high­light of the match.

Jabloteh play­ing with­out in­stru­men­tal goalscor­er Der­rel 'Zoom Zoom' Gar­cia, the St Bene­dict's Col­lege won­der­boy who is away on tri­als, turned to Sween and Seechan for guid­ance, and they did not dis­ap­point.

Sween, giv­en too much room on the right side of the Ea­gles FC de­fence in the 29th minute, cut in­side on his favourite left foot and beat the Ea­gles FC cus­to­di­an with a thun­der­ous shot that flew high in­to the roof of the goal for a 1-0 lead.

Seechan then fired his team ahead 2-0 from the doorstep in the 72nd minute, be­fore he drilled an­oth­er in the 87th minute to move his team to 35 points, but still in the fourth po­si­tion on the stand­ings.

RE­SULTS

Jabloteh 3 (Lin­dell Sween 29th, Eli­jah Seechan 72nd, 87th) vs Ea­gles FC 0

Po­lice 3 (Ka­reem Fre­itas 13th, Jo­evin Jones 35th, 39th) vs Cale­do­nia AIA 2 (Kiron Man­swell 55th, Josi­ah Shade 90th)

Stand­ings

Pl*Teams*P*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD*PTS

1*De­fence Force FC*18*16*0*2*67*17*50*50

2*MIC Cen­tral FC*18*12*5*1*44*27*17*37

3*Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC*19*11*5*3*57*36*21*36

4*San Juan Jabloteh*19*10*4*5*41*25*16*35

5*Ath­let­ic Club POS*18*8*4*6*34*24*10*30

6*Club San­do FC*18*8*6*4*30*18*12*28

7*Cale­do­nia AIA*19*8*8*3*31*39*-8*27

8*La Hor­quet­ta Rangers*18*3*7*8*29*34*-5*17

9*FC Phoenix*18*4*10*4*22*36*-14*16

10*Prison Ser­vice FC*18*3*10*5*22*34*-12*14

11*FC Ea­gles*19*3*14*2*17*72*-55*11

12*Point Fortin Civic FC*18*2*15*1*15*43*-28*7