​T&T youth team strik­er Adasa Richard­son scored the lone goal as Na­pari­ma Col­lege edged St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege 1-0 for a suc­cess­ful de­fence of their Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion crown at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va, Sat­ur­day (No­vem­ber 14).

​With the win, coach An­gus Eve cap­tured his fifth ti­tle as head coach of Na­pari­ma, which in the process claimed its sixth Pre­mier Di­vi­sion crown since the for­mat of the com­pe­ti­tion was in­tro­duced in 2014.

Na­pari­ma first won the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion in the in­au­gur­al sea­son of 2014 and made a suc­cess­ful de­fence of the ti­tle in 2015, be­fore go­ing back-to-back in 2018 and 2019, and then last year and this sea­son.

​How­ev­er, this year’s ti­tle cel­e­bra­tions were on­ly made cer­tain at the end of yes­ter­day’s en­counter with the resur­gent St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, who en­tered the match un­beat­en since Oc­to­ber 10, a 1-0 loss to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege.

Na­pari­ma start­ed the day lev­el on points with un­beat­en St Mary’s Col­lege, both with 37 points from 15 match­es, but with a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence of plus-36 to the ‘Saints’ plus-28, while Sig­nal Hill was third on 35 points.

​How­ev­er, when match­es kicked off yes­ter­day, the ‘Saints’ were quick out of the gates as they tried to close the gap in goal dif­fer­ence, with Nadeem Grant scor­ing in­side the first minute, Jay­lon Thomas adding his name to the score­sheet in the sixth minute, and Er­an Mc Leod scor­ing two min­utes lat­er for a 3-0 lead over San Juan North Sec­ondary at Ser­pen­tine Road in St Clair to put them ahead on points, 40 to Na­pari­ma’s 37.

But, sev­en min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val at Cou­va, Richard­son, who was part of the na­tion­al se­nior team for a friend­ly against Unit­ed Soc­cer League’s Louisville City FC last Ju­ly, got what turned out to be the de­ci­sive item to ease the fears of his team and coach Eve alike.

In the end, the lone goal from Richard­son, his 17th of the sea­son, was enough for his team to keep hold of their crown, spark­ing wild cel­e­bra­tions among the play­ers and sup­port­ers alike.

​At St Clair, Deron Black­man re­stored the three-goal lead for the ‘Saints’ in the 80th minute, but the hosts seemed to run out of steam on the hot and hu­mid evening as they went in search of as many goals as pos­si­ble to move ahead of Na­pari­ma.

​How­ev­er, in the end they failed to add to their three-goal lead as coach Cor­nell Glen’s men, de­spite end­ing the sea­son as the lone un­beat­en team in 16 match­es, had to set­tle for the run­ner-up spot on the 17-team ta­ble, beat­en to the ti­tle on goal dif­fer­ence by Na­pari­ma.

At Trinci­ty, vis­i­tors Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, who start­ed the day with an out­side chance of lift­ing the ti­tle as well, did their part with a 4-0 ham­mer­ing of hosts and al­ready-rel­e­gat­ed Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, led by a pair of goals from Jmeke Watkins to end with 38 points and third in the stand­ings.

​Jaden Mar­celle scored in the 30th minute and Ackim Dun­can two min­utes lat­er for a 2-0 lead, while Watkins got his first on the stroke of half-time from the penal­ty spot for a 3-0 lead.

​Watkins then added a sec­ond and his team’s fourth in the 82nd minute to cap off an im­pres­sive cam­paign on a per­son­al lev­el as well with 15 goals.

At the oth­er end of the ta­ble, Trin­i­ty East and Mu­cu­rapo West were joined by Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka and St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary as the teams to be de­mot­ed.

​This af­ter Trin­i­ty Mo­ka suf­fered a stun­ning 7-3 loss to Mu­cu­rapo West, with Naz­im Skin­ner scor­ing a hat-trick for the win­ners against the vis­i­tors who would have avoid­ed rel­e­ga­tion with a win, while St Au­gus­tine went un­der to Fa­ti­ma 4-2 at St Au­gus­tine, with Ja­haem Bai­ley car­ry­ing his record goalscor­ing tal­ly for the sea­son to 26 goals with a dou­ble.

​De­spite los­ing their match at St Mary’s, San Juan North avoid­ed the drop for yet an­oth­er sea­son on goal dif­fer­ence from St Au­gus­tine and Mu­cu­rapo West, af­ter all three teams end­ed with 11 points.

Sat­ur­day’s re­sults

QRC 2 (Nyrell Roberts 29th, Jah­seem Pierre 57th) vs Ari­ma North 0

Mu­cu­rapo West Sec 7 (Naz­im Skin­ner 3, Caleb Ja­cob, Eli Williams, Josi­ah Oliv­er, Ky­mani Sim­mons) vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka 3 (Jay­den Red­head, Kevez Quin­tero, Josi­ma Al­fred pen)

Na­pari­ma Col­lege 1 (Adasa Richard­son 38th) vs St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege 0

Fa­ti­ma 4 (Ja­haem Bai­ley 13th, 55th, An­tu­an Louisan 7th, Jor­dan Grant 23rd) vs St Au­gus­tine 2 (Is­rael Hold­er 45th, Ky­lon Williams 49th)

St Mary’s 4 (Nadeem Grant 1st, Jay­lon Thomas 6th, Er­an Mc Leod 8th, Deron Black­man 80th) vs San Juan North 1 (An­tho­ny Lewis 51st)

Sig­nal Hill 4 (Jmeke Watkins 45th pen, 82nd, Jaden Mar­celle 30th, Ackim Dun­can 32nd) vs Trin­i­ty East 0

Cur­rent stand­ings

Pos Teams P W D L GF GA GD Pts

1. Na­pari­ma*16*13*1*2*47*10*37*40

2. St Mary’s*16*12*4*0*41*10*28*40

3. Sig­nal Hill*16*12*2*2*37*13*24*38

4. Fa­ti­ma*16*9*5*2*49*22*27*32

5. Hillview*16*10*2*4*46*26*20*32

6. St Bene­dict’s*16*9*4*3*41*12*29*31

7. Pre­sen­ta­tion*16*7*5*4*30*20*10*26

8. St An­tho­ny’s*16*7*3*6*27*26*1*24

9. Spey­side*16*7*2*7*26*39*-13*23

10. Ari­ma North*16*6*1*9*31*38*-7*19

11. Mal­ick*16*5*1*10*36*38*-2*16

12. QRC*16*4*3*9*16*24*-8*15

13. San Juan North*16*3*2*11*18*40*-22*11

14. St Au­gus­tine*16*3*2*11*25*52*-27*11

15. Mu­cu­rapo West*16*3*2*11*22*53*-31*11

16. Trin­i­ty Mo­ka*16*2*4*10*29*60*-31*10

17. Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*16*1*3*12*18*56*-38*6

Lead­ing scor­ers

26 - Ja­haem Bai­ley (Fa­ti­ma)

17 - Adasa Richard­son (Na­pari­ma)

15 - Jmeke Watkins (Sig­nal Hill)

14 - Cris­tiano Hinds (Hillview), Keisean Spence (Mal­ick)

11 - Kanye Glas­gow (St Bene­dict’s), Jae­don Thomas (St Mary’s)

9 - Is­rael Hold­er (St Au­gus­tine),

8 - Is­rael Out­ar (Mal­ick), Justin Bernard (Spey­side)

7 - Jay­lon Forbes (St Bene­dict’s),

6 - Karim Milling­ton (St An­tho­ny’s), Dim­itrie Jones (Ari­ma North), Aidan Sinanan-Mc Don­ald, Os­hea Wat­son (Pre­sen­ta­tion), Mar­lon Jor­dan (Mu­cu­rapo West), Je­di­ael Mar­celle, Ackim Dun­can (Sig­nal Hill), Orande Par­ris (St Bene­dict’s), Je­re­mi­ah Wick­ham (Spey­side), Jabari Ro­driguez (Na­pari­ma)

5 - Je­di­ah David, Jae­den Samuel (Ari­ma North), Jay­lon Roberts (St Mary’s), Mar­ley Ram­dass (St An­tho­ny’s), Je­re­mai Nan­ton, Jonathan Ma­son (Fa­ti­ma), Jaylen Hinds, Ta­fari Kerr (Hillview), Samuel Bal­four (St Bene­dict’s), Kevez Quin­tero (Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka), Jak­won How­ell (Trin­i­ty East),