Daniel Jones net­ted a hat-trick to lead last year’s beat­en fi­nal­ist, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege to a com­pre­hen­sive 5-0 de­feat of Pleas­antville Sec­ondary in their Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Boys Co­ca-Co­la South Zone semi­fi­nal at the Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, Point Fortin on Fri­day.

Jones got his items in the 25th, 67th, and 71st minute af­ter team­mates Malachi Webb and Jaden Grant got the first two goals in the sec­ond, and 14th minute re­spec­tive­ly.

The match was bare­ly a minute old when Webb scored from an in­di­rect free-kick less than four yards out from goal af­ter ref­er­ee Ker­win Col­ley whis­tled for an in­tend­ed back pass by de­fend­er Jahiem Phillip to goal­keep­er Khy­lon Clarke.

Ten min­utes lat­er Grant dou­bled the lead for last year’s Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cham­pi­ons St Bene­dict’s when poked a right-foot­ed ef­fort un­der Clarke af­ter be­ing fed a clever pass by Je­re­mi­ah Niles.

Pleas­antville man­aged to stem the flow of the goals through some spir­it­ed de­fend­ing and time­ly in­ter­ven­tions from Clarke un­til the 25th minute when Jones, who was even­tu­al­ly named the man-of-the-match got his first, elud­ing Phillip on the left side of the six-yard box be­fore fir­ing past Clark on his near post to cap an ef­fi­cient first-half dis­play.

On the re­sump­tion, St Bene­dict’s took a while to get go­ing, but when they did it was Jones again, with an­oth­er so­lo ef­fort down the left flank past three Pleas­antville chal­lenge af­ter win­ning the ball to beat Clarke for a 4-0 lead in the 67th.

Four min­utes lat­er com­plet­ed his hat trick when he curled a left-foot­ed free-kick around a four-man wall and in­to the bot­tom right-hand cor­ner of the net with Clarke beat­en to storm in­to the zon­al fi­nal against Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege in a re­peat of last year’s de­cider, which will be played at the same venue on Fri­day, No­vem­ber 24 from 4.15 pm.

This af­ter a de­ci­sion by the SS­FL Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee was made at an emer­gency meet­ing to move the fi­nal from the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 23 as part of a dou­ble­head­er with the North Zone fi­nal which will fea­ture, St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, and Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege.

Pres edges Naps
5-4 on penal­ties

In yes­ter­day’s sec­ond semi­fi­nal Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege got the bet­ter of Na­pari­ma Col­lege 5-4 on penal­ty kicks af­ter a 0-0 score at the end of reg­u­la­tion time.

Pre­sen­ta­tion dom­i­nat­ed the pro­ceed­ings and had the first at­tempt of sub­stance off a short­ly worked free-kick from El­liot to Cody Coop­er in the 22nd minute.

How­ev­er, Coop­er’s fierce right-foot­ed swerv­ing at­tempt was bril­liant­ly par­ried away by Na­pari­ma cus­to­di­an Tyrece Ro­main who dived to his left to keep the match score­less.

On the stroke of half-time Ro­main was called in­to ac­tion again to keep out Pre­sen­ta­tion from go­ing in 1-0 at the in­ter­val when he raced off his line to de­ny Vaughn Clement with a point-blank save af­ter the lat­ter had run on­to a clear­ance from Coop­er that took a wicked bounced to beat two Na­pari­ma de­fend­ers at the top of the 18-yard box.

The sec­ond half be­gan in the same way as the first half end­ed with Ro­main be­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween a score­less en­counter and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege be­ing ahead.

First, he flung his body to his right to de­ny Adah Bar­clay’s left-foot­ed at­tempt which was des­tined for the top left cor­ner of the goal in the 53rd.

And from the re­sult­ing cor­ner, the ball dropped and took a nice bounce for Clement but his one-time head­er was blocked out by the Na­pari­ma goal­keep­er at full stretch.

In the 77th minute, it was the turn of de­fend­er Josi­ah Coop­er to come to the res­cue of a sub­dued Na­pari­ma out­fit when he lunged brave­ly at the feet of Bar­clay’s right-foot­ed ef­fort from about sev­en yards out to de­flect the ef­fort over the bar.

From the cor­ner, Ro­main was al­so alert to the dan­ger of keep­ing the ball from sneak­ing in at the first post as the game played out to a dogged draw.

In the shoot-out, Ro­main could not re­peat his hero­ics with Pre­sen­ta­tion’s Clement, Levi Jones, Maliq Brath­waite, Chaz Forde, and Duhrell Young all scor­ing while Kanye Fran­cis was the guilty cul­prit for Na­pari­ma, miss­ing their fourth at­tempt.

The quar­tet of cap­tain Ter­rell Ra­joon, Josi­ah Coop­er, Jar­ron Pas­call, and Jk­won Bai­ley scored their at­tempt for Na­pari­ma who were al­so beat­en at the semi­fi­nal stage last year, by the same op­po­nents, 1-0 while their lone meet­ing this sea­son in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion end­ed goal­less.

Yes­ter­day’s Re­sults

South Zone:

St Bene­dict’s Col­lege 5 (Daniel Jones 25th, 67th, 71st, Malachi Webb 2nd, Jaden Grant 14th) vs Pleas­antville Sec 0

Na­pari­ma Col­lege 0 vs Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege 0 - Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege won 5-4 on penal­ty-kicks

To­day’s match­es

To­ba­go Zone semi­fi­nal

Bish­op’s High vs Sig­nal Hill Sec @ Black Rock Rec. Grd, 3.30 pm

------Cut from here ----

Zon­al Fi­nals

Mon­day, No­vem­ber 20

Cen­tral Zone: Ch­agua­nas North Sec vs Mir­a­cle Min­istries SEc @ Ed­in­burgh 500 Rec. Grd, 3.30 pm

Tues­day, No­vem­ber 21

East Zone:

San Juan North Sec vs Ari­ma North Sec @ Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, 3.30 pm

Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 22

To­ba­go Zone:

Spey­side High vs Bish­op’s High/Sig­nal Hill win­ner @ Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let, 3.30 pm

Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 23

North Zone:

St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege vs Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege @ Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, 4.15 pm

Fri­day, No­vem­ber 24:

St Bene­dict’s Col­lege vs Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege @ Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, Pt Fortin .4.15 pm