Nigel Si­mon

Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League lead­ers, De­fence Force and mid-ta­ble team Di­recTV North East Stars booked their places in the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy quar­ter­fi­nal round with com­pre­hen­sive wins over Damarie Hill Re­unit­ed and Tay­lor Rental's Goal City re­spec­tive­ly on Mon­day night.

Play­ing in one of the two late match­es, the "Teteron Boys" fol­lowed up their 9-1 de­mo­li­tion of Petrotrin Pa­lo Seco in the round-of-32 with a 7-1 whip­ping of East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU) Re­unit­ed led by braces from Akiel Pierre and Al­bert Dex­ter Thorn­hill at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar.De­spite the ab­sence of strik­er De­von Jorsling due to in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty with the So­ca War­riors at the Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup Fi­nals in Mar­tinique, De­fence Force was ex­pect­ed to make light work of its op­po­nents.

And af­ter a slow start Kurt Williams fired De­fence Force in­to a 30th minute lead while Pierre, who net­ted a hat-trick in the win over Petrotrin Pa­lo Seco made it 2-0 four min­utes be­fore the half. On the stroke of half-time Kendell Not­tinghill pulled one back for Re­unit­ed but in the sec­ond-half, the "Teteron Boys" ­­­turned up the heat on their op­po­nents with five un-an­swered goals.

Thorn­hill got his first in the 49th minute while Pierre made it 4-1 four min­utes lat­er be­fore Thorn­hill al­so com­plet­ed his dou­ble in the 55th minute.Mar­vin Jones (74th) and Ronald "Sharky" St Louis (77th) then added their names to the score sheet to com­plet­ed the easy win to set up a quar­ter­fi­nal clash with fel­low Pro League club St Ann's Rangers.

In ad­di­tion to Rangers', Di­recTV North East Stars and Ma Pau are the two oth­er Pro League clubs which have qual­i­fied for the last eight. They will be joined the win­ner of the all-Pro League clash be­tween bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic and San Juan Jabloteh and Cale­do­nia AIA pro­vid­ing it gets past De­fence Force Su­per League squad in the two re­main­ing round-of-16 match­es.

Over at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, Stars fell be­hind to a 36th minute strike from Goal City's Aki­ni Fer­gu­son which it held un­til the in­ter­val in the sec­ond match of a dou­ble-head­er.