NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Sub­sti­tute Mus­sad­diq Mo­hammed scored an 80th minute win­ner as Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) cre­at­ed the biggest up­set of the sea­son, dump­ing reign­ing na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Pre­mier Di­vi­sion as well as North Zone and Na­tion­al In­ter­col cham­pi­ons Fa­ti­ma Col­lege in a 2-1 in a come-from-be­hind per­for­mance in their zon­al semi­fi­nal con­test at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, yes­ter­day.

With the win against the same op­po­nents whom they suf­fered a 7-1 loss against dur­ing the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion League sea­son, QRC, coached by for­mer na­tion­al strik­er Ken­wyne Jones, set up a zon­al fi­nal against St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, whom Jones helped to back-to-back na­tion­al ti­tle sweeps dur­ing his play­ing days in the ear­ly 1990s.

Fa­ti­ma be­gan the con­test as favourites and al­most took the lead in the 33rd minute, but strik­er Joshua Ma­son was de­nied by the left up­right from an acute an­gle af­ter he out­ran de­fend­er Isa­iah Isaac down the left flank.

Two min­utes lat­er, Fa­ti­ma even­tu­al­ly went ahead when an un­marked Aiden De Gannes was picked out by a short pass from Kade Col­lier just at the top of the penal­ty box, and with time and space he fired in on goal with the ball tak­ing a de­flec­tion off the leg of de­fend­er Za­kari King, to beat goal­keep­er Ja­heim Af­fan.

Six min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, the Roy­alians drew lev­el with a gem of a strike from Stephon James to stun the Fa­ti­ma sup­port­ers while spurring his team and his own sup­port­ers to life.

James won an aer­i­al bat­tle with de­fend­er Yohance Arther­ton fol­low­ing a long aer­i­al clear­ance from Tau Lam­see, be­fore he gath­ered him­self off the ground, and lashed home a left-foot­ed ef­fort past the des­per­ate lunge of de­fend­er Mi­ca­iah Leach from about 25 yards which flew past goal­keep­er Tris­tan Ed­wards, and in­to the top left-hand cor­ner of the goal.

Ma­son came close again to get­ting on the mark for Fa­ti­ma in the 69th minute, but just like his first-half ef­fort, he saw his right-foot­ed ef­fort skim the far post af­ter bat­tling his way past Isaac on an­oth­er ma­raud­ing run, for yet an­oth­er time on the night.

QRC’s Mo­hammed then sent his sup­port­ers in­to a fren­zy when he latched on­to a ball that Fa­ti­ma’s Mi­ca­iah Leach poked away from Mic­ah Nel­son in­side the 18-yard box, and with­out hes­i­ta­tion he curled a right-foot­er past the out­stretched hands of a div­ing Ed­wards in­to the far cor­ner.

The Roy­alians then with­stood a bar­rage of late at­tacks by the Hut­son Charles-coached Fa­ti­ma to se­cure a mem­o­rable come-from-be­hind win and a place in the fi­nal against the ‘West­moor­ing Tigers’ on Thurs­day from 3.30 at the same venue.

Tigers out­play East Mu­cu­rapo

Ear­li­er on in the day’s open­er St An­tho­ny’s dom­i­nat­ed the ear­ly ex­changes and wast­ed a chance to take the lead in the 14th minute when Jean-Marc Thomas in­ter­cept­ed a way­ward back pass in­tend­ed for goal­keep­er Aaron An­drews, but with the East Mu­cu­rapo cus­to­di­an out of his 18-yard box, Thomas guid­ed his ef­fort wide of the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the goal.

The open­ing goal fi­nal­ly came for the ‘West­moor­ing Tigers three min­utes be­fore the in­ter­val when An­dell Fras­er un­leashed a right-foot­ed rock­et in­to the roof of the East Mu­cu­rapo goal af­ter An­drews came up big first time around for his team with a time­ly block on a first post ef­fort by Theo Crovador.

It was soon 2-0 St An­tho­ny’s via a penal­ty from Joshua Miller in the 44th minute af­ter ref­er­ee CJ O’Brien whis­tled for a foul on Aaron Ed­wards on Miller who was put through on goal by cap­tain Aalon Wil­son-Wright.

Fras­er then had a chance to add an­oth­er for St An­tho­ny’s on the stroke of half-time but he failed to get off a shot in­side be­fore de­fend­er Je­lani Cox made a time­ly block, af­ter run­ning on­to a long clear­ance out of his own half by Wil­son-Wright, but luck­i­ly for East Mu­cu­rapo the score re­mained 2-0.

On the re­sump­tion, East Mu­cu­rapo al­most pulled a goal back in the 69th minute, but mid­field­er Clint Latch­man, who sur­pris­ing­ly start­ed on the bench, just failed to get on­to the end of a left-sided cross from Al-Kalipha Hen­ry, un­der pres­sure from de­fend­er Run­dell Hare­wood at the far post.

An­oth­er chance came East Mu­cu­rapo’s way in the 78th minute when Zion Harley out­jumped St An­tho­ny’s Je­re­my Bobb and con­nect­ed pow­er­ful­ly with a head­er off the cor­ner tak­en by Jadon Mc Shine, on­ly to see his ef­fort sail over­bar from in­side the six-yard box.

How­ev­er, East Mu­cu­rapo was made to rue those two missed chances two min­utes lat­er, when the re­sult was put be­yond doubt by St An­tho­ny’s.

The nip­py Crovador raced down the right side of the 18-yard box and man­aged to get in a tame across ahead of de­fend­er Khu­fu Muhammed, which was met on the first post by sub­sti­tute Morde­cai Ford whose one-time ef­fort beat An­drews on his first post for a 3-0 score line, and a spot in the fi­nal against the Roy­alians, where they will be seek­ing to avenge a 1-0 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion loss.

To­day, the South Zone will hold cen­tre stage with de­throned league cham­pi­ons and last year’s los­ing In­ter­col fi­nal­ist St Bene­dict’s Col­lege fac­ing Pre­mier Di­vi­sion rel­e­gat­ed out­fit Pleas­antville Sec­ondary in the first semi­fi­nal at Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, from 3 pm while Pre­sen­ta­tion of San Fer­nan­do tack­les Na­pari­ma Col­lege in the sec­ond match from 5.15 pm.