National champions St Anthony's College continued their good run of form yesterday, cruising past St Mary's College 3-0 in BGTT/FCB Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) North Zone action at the "Saints'" Serpentine Road, St Clair ground.
But Fatima College stayed close behind them, one point back in second, with their third straight victory after edging Diego Martin North 1-0 at Fatima's Mucurapo Road ground.
St Mary's put up a fight in the second half to give their supporters something to cheer, but by then the "Tigers" were three goals to the good.
Right winger Kiel Pierre started the scoring in the 12th minute for St Anthony's, while striker Adrian Millette doubled up just after half-time to ensure there was no way back into the match for the home team.
The match was won in midfield, where St Mary's yielded possession much too easily, and allowed their opponents the room to attack.
Pierre started things with some help from Xavier Rajpaul, whose dummy run to the right gave Pierre time in the penalty area to cut back to his favoured right foot and hammer in the Tigers' first.
St Mary's did not look likely to answer in the first half, but St Anthony's goalkeeper Jevon Sample did make an acrobatic save before half-time to maintain his team's advantage.
But Millette's double blow effectively confirmed the result for the defending North Zone champs. In just the second minute after the restart, he took on two defenders in a solo run. The tackle never came, and he picked his spot with a diagonal strike from the left, under the advancing Christian Attong in Saints goal.
Nine minutes later, the third and final item came, this time from a move started by Rajpaul in midfield, with Pierre joining in for the one-two, then squaring for Millette to tap in from the far post with Attong stranded.
The "Saints" made sure Sample and the Tigers' defence would have to work for their clean sheet, as they abandoned their containment tactics and surged forward. They were nearly rewarded, but a combination of near misses and desperate defending and goalkeeping denied them a consolation goal.
Presentation College, San Fernando were the biggest winners on the day though, stopping Moruga Composite 6-0 at Moruga.
By Andrew Gioannetti & Nigel Simon (Guardian).
With only four matches played, champions St Anthony’s College got a result which justified its title as season “favourites”, when the Westmoorings “Tigers” traveled to Serpentine Road, and left with a 3-0 victory, at the expense of St Mary’s College, in the BGTT/First Citizens Secondary Schools’ Football League (SSFL) North Zone, yesterday.
The 2011 “invincibles” opened with another goal from Kareem Corbin in the 12th minute, for a 1-0 lead at the half, before one of the outstanding talent’s of last season Adrian Millette slotted home a brace (47th, 57th), for a comfortable victory, least expected by coach Nigel Grosvenor, who previously described the test as a “difficult one”.
The result put St Anthony’s on 10 points from four matches, with the only points dropped coming from a 0-0 stalemate to newly promoted Diego Martin North Secondary.
The win also saw St Anthony’s extend its unbeaten run to 23 matches since the beginning of last season’s campaign. St Mary’s, suffering its second loss, has lacked any creativity in the final third of the pitch as it has recorded just one goal in four matches.
Meanwhile, at Fatima Ground, Mucurapo, it was Diego Martin North which almost spoiled another party. In a scrappy affair, Fatima College managed to scrape a 1-0 victory over the Diego Martin team, thanks to another important goal from Arvin Prescod in the first half.
The zone’s other match saw QRC remain without a point as Trinity recorded its first victory of the season via a 2-1 victory.
Leader “Pres” whips Moruga 6-0 for fourth straight win
Presentation College San Fernando showed no mercy when it trounced a sorry Moruga team 6-0, at Moruga, to remain on top of the standings, with a perfect 12 points from four matches.
The team’s leading scorer for the past two seasons Shackiel Henry was on target with four goals (seven goals in four matches), with Jivaughn Dimsoy and Angel Williams adding one a piece to sink Moruga to yet another loss (its third in as many matches).
Shiva Boys, the reigning South Zone champions, meanwhile, also continued its winning ways with a narrow 1-0 away win over Princes Town, thanks to a match-winning first-half effort scored by none other than Nathaniel Garcia, who has bagged every goal and won every match for the team this season.
Shiva now sits three points behind Presentation, but with a match in hand.
Nicholas Dillon scored a hat-trick in Naparima’s 5-0 victory over second-from-bottom Pleasantville.
El Do East, San Juan win
El Dorado East and San Juan North both secured away victories over Trinity East and Toco Secondary respectively to join idle Arima North at the top of the East Zone standings with seven points each from three matches.
For El Dorado East, the “Blue Thunder” Gabriel Ragout scored in the ninth minute to tie up the score after David Lezama had given host Trinity a shock eighth minute advantage.
Mikal Primus then netted in the 28th minute to put the visitors ahead 2-1 which they took into the interval before Shaquille Bertrand added a 55th minute insurance item for the visitors.
San Juan made the journey to Toco and came away with a 2-0 triumph via strikes from Corrie Dhanoolal in the 35th minute, and Brent Sam, the nephew of former national striker, Hector Sam, five minutes from full-time.
Meanwhile, Ricardo John scored in the 36th and 78th minute and Aikim Andrews in the 75th for the “Green Machine” of St Augustine to shut-out host El Dorado West, 3-0 in the zone’s other match.
Results
North
St Anthony’s College 3 (Kareem Corbin 12th, Adrian Millette 47th, 57th) vs St Mary’s College 0
Fatima College 1 (Arvin Prescod) vs Diego Martin North 0
Trinity College 2 (Shaquille Huggins pen, Chris Garpard) vs QRC 1 (Akil Morris)
South
Presentation College S/do 6 (Shackiel Henry 4, Jivaughn Dimsoy, Angel Williams) vs Moruga 0
Naparima 5 (Nicholas Dillon 16th, 63rd, 72nd, Jabari Mitchell 59th, Akeem Humphrey 79th) vs Pleasantville 0
Shiva Boys 1 (Nathaniel Garcia) vs Princes Town 0
East
St Augustine 3 (Ricardo John 36th, 78th, Aikim Andrews 75th) vs El Do West 0
El Do East 3 (Gabriel Ragout 9th, Mikal Primus 28th, Shaquille Bertrand 55th) vs Trinity East 1 (David Lezama 8th)
San Juan North (Corrie Dhanoolal 35th, Brent Sam 85th) vs Toco 0
Current Zonal Sandings [North]
Teams P W D L F A Pts
St Anthony’s 4 3 1 0 7 1 10
Fatima 4 3 0 1 3 2 9
East Mucurapo 3 1 2 0 4 2 5
St Mary’s 4 1 1 2 1 4 4
Trinity 3 1 1 1 4 5 4
D/Martin North 3 0 1 2 0 2 1
QRC 3 0 0 3 2 5 0
East
Teams P W D L F A Pts
Arima North 3 2 1 0 9 2 7
El Do East 3 2 1 0 8 4 7
San Juan North 3 2 1 0 5 1 7
St Augustine 3 1 2 0 5 2 5
Trinity East 3 1 0 2 3 5 3
Toco 3 0 1 2 1 9 1
El Do West 4 0 0 4 3 11 0
South
Teams P W D L F A Pts
Presentation 4 4 0 0 15 2 12
Shiva Boys 3 3 0 0 6 0 9
Naparima 4 2 0 2 7 6 6
St Benedict’s 3 1 0 2 10 6 3
P/Town 3 1 0 2 3 5 3
P’ville 4 1 0 3 4 11 3
Moruga 3 0 0 3 2 17 0
Central
Teams P W D L F A Pts
Carapichaima 2 2 0 0 15 1 6
Chaguanas North 2 1 1 0 3 0 4
Presentation 2 1 1 0 2 0 4
Couva West 2 1 0 1 6 3 3
Tabaquite 2 0 0 2 0 9 0
Gasparillo 2 0 0 2 1 14 0
Tobago
Teams P W D L F A Pts
Speyside 1 0 1 0 3 3 1
Scarborough 1 0 1 0 3 3 1
Mason Hall 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Signal Hill 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Roxborough 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
John double helps Gustine beat El Do
BY KEVIN SUNICH (Newsday).
FORWARD Ricardo John scored a goal in each half as former champions St Augustine claimed a 3-0 win over home team El Dorado West as play in the East Zone of the Secondary Schools Football League continued yesterday.
This is the Green Machine’s first win after being held to a 1-1 draw by Toco in their opening match. The former champions controlled the match from the opening whistle and should have scored no less than five goals.
The El Do Brown defenders and their goal keeper were kept busy and they were able to hold off Gustine until late in the first-half.
The Green Machine finally broke the deadlock in the 41st minute as John took full advantage of a goal keeping error. Gustine was awarded a free kick just outside the 18-yard box which was taken by Nicholas Marcano.
His curling kick gave the El Do custodian some difficulty and he failed to gather. The ball landed in front of John who made no mistake in finding the net to give his team a 1-0 advantage going into the break.
The former champions started the second period more aggressively as substitute Akim Garcia made two threatening runs down the left side, however, El Do’s defence was able to recover and avoid any danger. The home team had a couple of runs down the right flank, but Gustine’s defence was equal to the task averting any danger.
John was then denied by the El Do keeper at point blank range after a defence error freed him up with only the custodian to beat.
He will however, get his second a few minutes later as he latched onto a square pass from Akim Andrews from the right side. He slammed the ball past the helpless El Do custodian in the 65th minute to make it 2-0.
Andrews put the final nail in the coffin in the 78th minute as he took advantage of another goal keeping error to tap home giving his team a 3-0 win.
Head coach Michael Grayson said while he was not completely pleased with the showing, he was thankful for the win.
“I am not totally satisfied with this game. We should have done a lot better in scoring the goals. This is an area that continues to affect our play. We should have scored at least eight goals from the opportunities we created. Nevertheless we needed a win and we go it so I will live with this,” said Grayson.
He said the condition of the El Dorado West ground may have played a big part in his team not winning by a bigger margin. Grayson said now that they have a win under their belt it should do the players confidence the world of good.
“This win will now lift their confidence and it is left to them to build from this. We have El Do Blue on Saturday and this win will no doubt help as we head into that encounter,” said the head coach.
Today’s SSFL Results -
North Zone -
FATIMA (1) vs DIEGO MARTIN (0).
ST ANTHONY’S (3) vs ST MARY’S (0).
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