NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary and Bish­op’s High School were crowned cham­pi­ons of their re­spec­tive To­ba­go Zone Girls and Boys Tiger Tank Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Girls’ and Boys’ Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, on Thurs­day.

In the day’s open­er, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary de­feat­ed long-time ri­vals Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary 3-1 in the Girls’ fi­nal.

Scar­bor­ough went ahead as ear­ly as the 12th minute when a free-kick from J’Eleisha Alexan­der was fum­bled over the line by the op­pos­ing goal­keep­er, but with­in four min­utes, Lei-Marie Bal­four got Sig­nal Hill back on lev­el terms in the 80-min­utes con­test.

Four min­utes be­fore the half-time whis­tle, Shaki­ra Charles re­stored Scar­bor­ough’s ad­van­tage with a right-foot­ed ef­fort from in­side the 18-yard box while Kel­le­cia Tay­lor added the third item with a long-range ef­fort in the 78th.

With the win, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary se­cured their spot in the Na­tion­al SS­FL Girls Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion ‘Big-Five’ where they join Holy Name Con­vent (North Zone), and Five Rivers Sec­ondary (East Zone) as the teams al­ready qual­i­fied, with the Cen­tral Zone, and South Zone cham­pi­ons for the na­tion­al league play­offs still to be de­cid­ed.

Goal­keep­er Mc Each­nie stars in Bish­op’s High

Goal­keep­er Kris­teon Mc Each­nie was the hero for Bish­op’s High School, pulling off three straight penal­ty-kicks shoot-out saves to earn his team a 3-2 shoot-out win over Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary af­ter both teams had bat­tled to a 1-1 draw in the sec­ond match at Ba­co­let.

Af­ter a goal­less first-half, Kaieem Lewis fired Bish­op’s High ahead in the 54th and that goal looked like enough for his team to lift the cov­et­ed ti­tle, on­ly for Rick­el­di Williams to pounce in the 88th minute to get Ma­son Hall a de­served equalis­er to send the match in­to ex­tra-time.

Both teams then failed to find a win­ner in the two ten-minute halves be­fore the dra­ma un­fold­ed in the penal­ty shoot-out with Ma­son Hall goal­keep­er Neon Walk­er sav­ing Bish­op’s High first two at­tempts while his team-mates scored their first two, for a 2-0 lead.

It was then the turn of Mc Each­nie to come up trumps for the league round-robin ta­ble-top­pers Bish­op’s High as he then de­nied the next three ef­forts from Ma­son Hall while his com­pa­tri­ots scored to se­cure a 3-2 shootout tri­umph, and with it the zon­al crown to join St Mary’s Col­lege (North), Ari­ma North Sec­ondary (East), Mir­a­cle Min­istries (Cen­tral) and Siparia West Sec­ondary (South) in the Big-Five round-robin se­ries which be­gan on Sat­ur­day last with the “Saints” beat­ing Mir­a­cle Min­istries 5-1.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries, the top three schools will gain pro­mo­tion back to the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion where they will re­place the al­ready de­mot­ed duo of St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary and Moru­ga Sec­ondary along with the los­er of the play­off be­tween the two sev­enth-placed teams from each Pre­mier Di­vi­sion groups.

East Mu­cur­pao is al­ready as­sured of com­pet­ing in the play­off as the sev­enth-placed fin­ish­er from Group B of the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion and will come up against one from St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, Cara­pichaima East, and Pleas­antville Sec­ondary in their play­off with the los­er be­ing the third team to be de­mot­ed.