Trendsetter Hawks cops NFA FA crown

Daniel David fired Hawks ahead on the stroke of half-time as they led 1-0 at the break and ten min­utes from the fi­nal whis­tle, Isa­iah Primus dou­bled the ad­van­tage to 2-0.

How­ev­er, three min­utes lat­er, Bran­don Quin­tero pulled a goal back for North Coast SCC and they were hand­ed a life­line to send the match in­to penal­ty-kicks when Hawks’ Ato Em­manuel was is­sued a sec­ond-yel­low card for a foul in the 18-yard-box on Damien Williams.

But it was not to be as Col­in Kirk failed to con­vert the penal­ty to the dis­may of his team-mates and de­light of Hawks, who held on for the win to make amends for last year’s fi­nal de­feat.

Speak­ing af­ter the win, Hawks’ coach An­tho­ny “Da­da” Wick­ham said it was nice to end with the ti­tle hav­ing thrown away the league af­ter fal­ter­ing in their fi­nal cou­ple match­es.

“We made up our mind to come out and run this team (North Coast) right down to the end af­ter they de­feat­ed us in one of our fi­nals match­es to close out the sea­son, which took away the league from us,” Wick­ham said.

“Most of the play­ers grew up in this acad­e­my from around nine-years-old and we didn’t have them at the start of the sea­son due to their in­volve­ment in col­leges foot­ball and once that was over they came back and boost­ed the team.

“We now have to do a lit­tle re­flec­tion and come back again next year and win the league and try and qual­i­fy to the Su­per League.”

Last Wednes­day, Isa­iah Lea­cock fired in a beaver-trick as Cul­tur­al Roots Unit­ed cel­e­brat­ed be­ing crowned new Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cham­pi­ons, their sec­ond in club his­to­ry, with a 6-1 spank­ing of last year’s win­ners Mis­cel­la­neous Laven­tille Unit­ed at Dibe Recre­ation Ground, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James.

Lea­cock, who scored a hat-trick on Sun­day last when his team scored a come-from-be­hind 4-2 win over North Coast SCC at North Coast Ground, Mara­cas, got his goals in the third, 13th, 36th and 55th min­utes to end as the league’s top scor­er with 17 to his name.

Ka­reem Joseph added a dou­ble in the 29th and 57th min­utes for Cul­tur­al Roots, who end­ed with 38 points from their 16-match sched­ule, sev­en ahead of run­ner’s-up Can­taro Unit­ed, who blanked for­mer cham­pi­ons St Fran­cois Na­tion­als 4-0 led by braces from Sime­on Bai­ley and Mar­cus Berot.

Re­sults

FA Fi­nal

(De­cem­ber 17)

TREND­SET­TER HAWKS 2 (Daniel David 45th, Isa­iah Primus 80th) v NORTH COAST SCC 1 (Bran­don Quin­tero 83rd)

Pre­mier Di­vi­sion

CUL­TUR­AL ROOTS 6 (Isa­iah Lea­cock 3rd, 13th, 36th, 55th, Ka­reem Joseph 29th, 57th) v MIS­CEL­LA­NEOUS LAVEN­TILLE 1
CAN­TARO UNIT­ED 4 (Sime­on Bai­ley 22nd, 60th, Mar­cus Berot 37th, 88th) v ST FRAN­COIS NA­TION­ALS 0
BEL­MONT FC 2 (Ma­ciek Hoyte 80th, Alec Ben­ny 91st) v NORTH COAST SCC 2 (Kevin Quin­tero 21st, Jameel Ma­haraj 45th)
MIS­CEL­LA­NEOUS LAVEN­TILLE 2 (Tyler Kir­ton 22nd, 79th) v BEL­MONT FC 2 (Christo­pher Her­nan­dez 84th, Matin Sedighi 93rd)
PAT­NA/RIV­ER ES­TATE UNIT­ED 3 v PARAMIN SCHOL­ARS UNIT­ED 0 – by de­fault

Fi­nal stand­ings

Pre­mier Di­vi­sion:

Teams P W D L F A Pts
1. Cul­tur­al Roots 16 12 2 2 52 17 38
2. Can­taro Utd 16 9 4 3 52 23 31
3. Trend­set­ter Hawks 16 9 3 4 43 17 30
4. Bel­mont FC 16 7 6 3 29 25 27
5. St Fran­cois Na­tion­als 16 6 6 4 35 30 24
6. Pat­na/Riv­er Es­tate 16 6 2 8 28 31 20
7. North Coast SCC 16 4 6 6 31 32 18
8. Mis­cel­la­neous Lav’tille 16 1 3 12 25 73 6
9. Paramin Schol­ars 16 0 4 12 14 61 4

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion:

Teams P W D L F A Pts
1. Front Line 14 11 1 2 62 24 34
2. P.V/D.M 14 10 2 2 62 19 32
3. Har­vard 14 7 2 5 26 27 23
4. Seek­ers FC 14 7 1 6 36 33 22
5. RSSR FC 14 6 0 8 28 38 18
6. Mor­vant El­e­ments 13 4 1 8 25 53 13
7. Malvern SC 14 3 2 9 21 42 11
8. Com­bined Forces 14 2 1 1 25 50 7

SOURCE: T&T Guardian