Nigel Si­mon

T&TEC and W Con­nec­tion, the top two clubs in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League, were made to fight un­til the fi­nal whis­tle be­fore se­cur­ing their semi­fi­nal places in the Toy­ota Cup Clas­sic com­pe­ti­tion. This af­ter both teams came away with nar­row vic­to­ries over two bmo­bile Na­tion­al Su­per League clubs from To­ba­go, Stoke­ly Vale and 1976 To­ba­go Phoenix, at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la on Fri­day night. In the open­er, the "Elec­tric­i­ty Boys" raced in­to a 4–1 lead be­fore hang­ing on for a 4–3 win over Stoke­ly Vale, while W Con­nec­tion edged Phoenix 1–0. T&TEC got off to a fly­er when strik­er Sylvester Tees­dale head­ed past goal­keep­er Ryan Stew­art off Javed Mo­hammed's right side cor­ner for a 1–0 ad­van­tage af­ter on­ly eight min­utes. How­ev­er, Stoke­ly Vale hit back 11 min­utes lat­er when Travis Win­ches­ter buried a shot in the net af­ter goal­keep­er Aki­ni Adams made a spill on a shot from out­side the area. Ten min­utes from the in­ter­val, T&TEC re­gained its lead via a free-kick from na­tion­al mid­field­er An­drei Pacheco. The score moved to 3–1 af­ter Kern Pe­ters cap­i­talised on an­oth­er spill by goal­keep­er Stew­art from Kelvin Mod­este's free-kick to slam home from close range. Ja­mal Ayres then made it 4–1 in the 77th minute as T&TEC looked to be coast­ing in­to the last four of the $60,000 com­pe­ti­tion.

How­ev­er, with 11 min­utes left, Win­ches­ter grabbed his sec­ond of the match for Stoke­ly Vale with a sol­id fin­ish past sub­sti­tute goalie Per­ry Mar­tin and two min­utes from full-time sub­sti­tute Run­del Win­ches­ter made it 4–3 to set up a ner­vous few min­utes for the Elec­tric­i­ty Boys. Stoke­ly Vale was then de­nied a com­ple­tion of its fight-back when Win­ches­ter (R) saw a head­er crashed off the cross-bar from a well flight­ed free-kick. In the end, T&TEC held on to ad­vance in­to the semi­fi­nal against the win­ner of last night's quar­ter­fi­nal be­tween last year's run­ner-up Di­recTV North East Stars against two-time run­ner-up St Ann's Rangers which was con­test­ed at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar. W Con­nec­tion, mean­while, mi­nus sev­en of its reg­u­lar play­ers in An­dre Marchan (goal­keep­er), Jo­evin Jones (de­fend­er), Mekeil Williams (de­fend­er), Jayson Joseph (mid­field­er), Jo­mal Williams (mid­field­er), and strik­ers Shah­don Win­ches­ter and Jer­rel Brit­to, all on na­tion­al Un­der-23 team du­ty in St Kitts/Nevis, booked spot in the last-four via a free-kick from Ke­muel Rivers. Rivers, who nor­mal­ly comes off the bench, en­joyed his mo­ment in the start­ing line-up and capped it off with a well struck left-foot­ed free-kick in the 29th minute from 24-yards out. W Con­nec­tion now awaits the win­ner of last evening's oth­er quar­ter­fi­nal be­tween the 2008 win­ner, Adams Con­struc­tion San Juan Jabloteh and First Cit­i­zens Cup win­ner, Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA. The semi­fi­nal dou­ble-head­er takes place on Sat­ur­day at Mal­abar, from 6 pm.

Re­sults

Fri­day: Venue: Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la.

W Con­nec­tion 1 (Ke­muel Rivers 29th) vs 1976 To­ba­go Phoenix 0

T&TEC 4 (Sylvester Tees­dale 8th, An­drei Pacheco 35th, Kern Pe­ters 55th, Ja­mal Ayres 68th) vs Stoke­ly Vale 3 (Travis Win­ches­ter 19th, 79th, Run­del Win­ches­ter 88th)