Balthazar puts Army in control

Both teams looked as though they would set­tle for a share of the points de­spite their valiant ef­forts, how­ev­er, Balt­haz­ar, a for­mer na­tion­al fut­sal soc­cer play­er as well, had oth­er ideas and fired in the de­ci­sive item to push his team to 25 points from 11 match­es, one ahead of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA who suf­fered a sec­ond de­feat on the trot in the process af­ter a 0-3 loss to Cunu­pia FC at the same venue on Sat­ur­day last.

Team cap­tain Jer­wyn "Bal­ly" Balt­haz­ar was the toast of his De­fence Force team-mates as he con­jured up a win­ner five min­utes in­to time added-on to se­cure a 1-0 tri­umph over Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA and a one-point lead in the race for the $250,000 top prize in Di­vi­sion One of the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League on Wednes­day.

Both teams looked as though they would set­tle for a share of the points de­spite their valiant ef­forts, how­ev­er, Balt­haz­ar, a for­mer na­tion­al fut­sal soc­cer play­er as well, had oth­er ideas and fired in the de­ci­sive item to push his team to 25 points from 11 match­es, one ahead of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA who suf­fered a sec­ond de­feat on the trot in the process af­ter a 0-3 loss to Cunu­pia FC at the same venue on Sat­ur­day last.

Last night in Di­vi­sion Two, third-placed San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants had a chance to go top of their ta­ble ahead of the fi­nal round of match­es on Sun­day with a vic­to­ry against third from bot­tom RSSR FC at Curepe Recre­ation Ground, Knowles Street, Curepe.

Go­ing in­to the match, De­porti­vo P.F led the ta­ble with 25 points from ten match­es, one ahead of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T while San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants sit third with 22 points and last night's en­counter in hand.

On Sun­day in the fi­nal round of match­es, Gi­ants and De­porti­vo P.F will meet at Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Train­ing Field, while UTT hosts Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre at O'Meara Road, Ari­ma, both from 4 pm.

RE­SULTS

Yes­ter­day

De­fence Force 1 (Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar 95th) vs Mor­vant Cale­do­nia AIA 0

On Tues­day

Club San­do 2 (Nion Lam­my 18th, 48th) vs Po­lice FC 1 (Ka­reem Fre­itas 68tth)

Lat­est As­cen­sion Team Stand­ings

Di­vi­sion One

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts
1. De­fence Force*10*8*1*1*22*6*25
2. Mor­vant Cale­do­nia*10*8*0*2*21*10*24
3. Cunu­pia FC*10*6*1*3*23*13*19
4. Jabloteh*9*6*1*2*20*13*19
5. T L. H Rangers*9*5*2*2*29*8*17
6. Club San­do*10*5*1*4*18*14*16
7. Po­lice FC*10*3*2*5*18*14*11
8. San­ta Rosa*9*3*2*4*14*17*11
9. QPCC*9*2*4*3*11*17*10
10. Guaya Unit­ed*9*2*0*7*6*21*6
11. Prison Ser­vice*10*1*1*8*11*27*4
12. Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed*10*1*1*8*11*41*4

Di­vi­sion Two

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts
1. De­porti­vo*10*8*1*1*53*9*25
2. UTT*10*7*3*0*31*11*24
3. San F'do Gi­ants*9*7*1*1*26*10*22
4. Po­lice FC*10*6*0*4*13*17*18
5. Erin FC*10*4*1*5*16*20*13
6. Harlem Strik­ers*10*4*1*5*14*22*13
7. Club San­do U/Youths*10*3*3*4*21*21*12
8. Moru­ga FC*10*3*2*5*14*23*11
9. Bethel Unit­ed*10*3*2*5*14*26*11
10. RSSR FC*9*3*1*5*11*13*10
11. P.V/D.M*10*2*1*7*9*20*7
12. Mara­bel­la*10*1*0*9*6*36*3

Up­com­ing Match­es

Di­vi­sion One

To­day

QPCC vs San Juan Jabloteh, Dibe Rec. Grd, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, 7 pm

RELATED NEWS

Footballers attack match referee.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way to de­ter­mine a pos­si­ble course of ac­tion, if any, to deal with play­ers of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed in Wednes­day's top of the ta­ble clash in the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League with De­fence Force at Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar Ari­ma.

Video footage be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed showed as­sis­tant ref­er­ee Kirt Charles be­ing as­sault­ed by play­ers from the Mor­vant Cale­do­nia team while the match of­fi­cials were mak­ing their way off the pitch.

It is un­cer­tain what caused the al­ter­ca­tion, but it is un­der­stood that play­ers from the East­ern Stal­lions (Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed) were fu­ri­ous over the Army's win­ning goal from Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar which ap­peared to have come from an off-side po­si­tion in the 90+5 min­utes of the match. Fol­low­ing the goal the play­ers and sup­port­ers protest­ed, nev­er­the­less, the game was com­plet­ed and the Mor­vant Cale­do­nia play­ers con­tin­ued their protest of the goal with match ref­er­ee Crys­tal Sobers and Charles.

But yes­ter­day Guardian Me­dia Sports was re­li­ably in­formed by play­ers from De­fence Force that ref­er­ee Sobers al­leged­ly re­act­ed to con­stant ver­bal chal­lenges from the Mor­vant Cale­do­nia play­ers.

Her ac­tion led to an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion by the play­ers, which then trig­gered Charles to spring in­to ac­tion to de­fend his fel­low ref­er­ee.

Video footage showed Charles at the end of a bru­tal at­tack, as play­ers and of­fi­cials from the De­fence Force play­ers mak­ing at­tempts to quell the mat­ter.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia Sports on Thurs­day, Kyle Duprey who was the Match Com­mis­sion­er, was re­luc­tant to com­ment, say­ing the mat­ter was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by League of­fi­cials. He ex­plained, how­ev­er, the match was pro­fes­sion­al­ly done by some of the coun­try's top of­fi­cials (Crys­tal Sobers - match ref­er­ee; with as­sis­tants Kirt Charles and Ains­ley Rochard). He said Mor­vant Cale­do­nia play­ers ap­peared to have been en­raged with the last-minute goal, with such a hefty cash prize ($250,000) at stake.

Key of­fi­cial Richard Piper could not be reached for com­ment on Thurs­day. It is un­der­stood he had been en­gaged in meet­ings all day, try­ing to se­cure a le­gal opin­ion of how to treat with the mat­ter. Piper had al­so been at­tempt­ing to get the ac­counts of sev­er­al eye­wit­ness­es.

With the goal, the De­fence Force won the game 1-0 and re­turned to the top of the stand­ings with 25 points with one round of match­es to go. They lead Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed by one point go­ing in­to their fi­nal game against Matu­ra Re Unit­ed on Sun­day.

Cale­do­nia will be up against FC San­ta Rosa's 'Big Can­nons', who were at the los­ing end of 7-0 drub­bing by Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers at La Hor­quet­ta.