'Pres', CIC in SSFL spotlight today

To­day, the play­ers from di­vi­sion lead­ers Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege and ti­tle chal­lengers Na­pa­ri­ma Col­lege, both of San Fer­nan­do, to­geth­er with San Juan North Sec­ondary and St Mary's Col­lege, Port-of-Spain, will show what they are made of when the fi­nal round of match­es in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion of the Shell/First Cit­i­zens Sec­ondary School's Foot­ball League (SS­FL) kicks off at var­i­ous venues across the coun­try. All match­es start at 3:40 pm

To­day, three points and as many goals as pos­si­ble will de­ter­mine which team cel­e­brate and which will be left to ru­in what could have been.

This round of match was post­poned from Oc­to­ber 20 be­cause of per­sis­tent rains which caused se­vere flood­ing in the east­ern and cen­tral parts of T&T. The rain al­so af­fect­ed the SS­FL round 12 match pro­gramme.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege will vis­it San Juan with 32 points and will need noth­ing less than a vic­to­ry at a venue where the host has lost just once this sea­son, an ex­cit­ing 3-2 bat­tle with Na­pari­ma Col­lege two weeks ago. For San Juan (29 points) to have any chance of lift­ing the ti­tle, it must win by at least six clear goals be­cause of the team's in­fe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence to that of their vis­i­tors. San Juan will need help from Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka to de­ny Na­pari­ma three points.

Last Sat­ur­day, St Mary's which is fac­ing de­mo­tion got a much need boost af­ter sur­pris­ing­ly drub­bing Trin­i­ty in Mar­aval 5-1.

With 31 points, Na­pari­ma's coach An­gus Eve is fo­cused for the Trin­i­ty Mo­ka clash in Mar­aval. Eve said Na­pari­ma can on­ly do what the team need to do and that is win its last match and wait for the out­come of Pre­sen­ta­tion and San Juan en­counter.

For Trin­i­ty Mo­ka, its ob­jec­tive will be to end the sea­son on a win­ning note at home in an ef­fort to blank out QRC's Oc­to­ber 10 4-1 win and St Mary's 5-1 de­feat.

So ex­pect coach Shawn Coop­er and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege to do all they can to re­peat as cham­pi­on just as the school did last year away from home at Fa­ti­ma Grounds in Mu­cu­rapo. The team's de­fen­sive back­line is ex­pect­ed to be back at full strength with the re­turn of in­stru­men­tal de­fend­er Justin Corn­wall af­ter an au­to­mat­ic one-match sus­pen­sion and backed up by Jaiye Shep­perd, Jor­dan Ri­ley, the team's pro­lif­ic goal scor­er and Jardel St Clair.

Coop­er said, "Both teams over the years have played close games and this one is no dif­fer­ent. They (San Juan) have key play­ers who can win a game and a very good coach­ing staff with lots of ex­pe­ri­ence. Our prepa­ra­tion went ok, as a re­sult, we haven't yet de­cid­ed on our start­ing team. We will be try­ing to put all the pieces to­geth­er, it will be a tough task."

Mean­while, St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC) need just one point to stay up the Di­vi­sion against Trin­i­ty East fol­low­ing its im­pres­sive 5-1 drub­bing of Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka on Sat­ur­day and then the team fol­lowed that up on Mon­day, by clob­ber­ing St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary 4-0 in St Au­gus­tine to en­sure that its fi­nal match at home at Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair will bring the school vic­to­ry and se­cure its place in the 2019 com­pe­ti­tion.

To­day's Match-ups (Kick off 3:40 pm)

Bish­op's hosts St Bene­dict's in To­ba­go
East Mu­cu­rapo host St An­tho­ny's at Fa­ti­ma Grounds
San Juan hosts Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, at San Juan
St Mary's hosts Trin­i­ty East at St Clair
Trin­i­ty Mo­ka hosts Na­pari­ma at Mo­ka
Va­len­cia hosts Fa­ti­ma at Va­len­cia

SOURCE: T&T Guardian