Nigel Si­mon

Char­nice Cato scored a goal on ei­ther side of the half to lead Har­vard Mar­itime Check­ers past Malvern 3-1, to keep their chances of lift­ing the T&T Hock­ey Board Women's Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion "Big-Four" crown alive at the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre in Tacarigua, yes­ter­day.Losers of their first match to Paragon, 3-2 on Thurs­day night, Check­ers was des­per­ate to get in win­ners over Malvern, beat­en 5-4 by Notre Dame on Wednes­day.Mindy Charles got Check­ers off to a fly­er with the open­ing goal af­ter on­ly three min­utes, while Cato got her first in the 28th for a 2-0 half-time ad­van­tage.

With its chances of se­cur­ing the Big-Four crown fad­ing with every pass­ing sec­ond, Malvern threw every­thing at Check­ers and pulled a goal back via na­tion­al de­fend­er, Tere­sa Leza­ma in the 65th but with­in a minute Cato got her sec­ond and Check­ers' third to seal a 3-1 win and three points, the same as Notre Dame and Paragon who faced off last night ahead of to­day's fi­nal round of match­es.In the first match, Notre Dame will face Check­ers at 1pm while Malvern bat­tles Paragon at 5pm.

Paragon beat Parkites men on penalties­Paragon men al­so stayed in the hunt for top ho­n­ours af­ter beat­ing Queen's Park 4-2 on penal­ty-flicks fol­low­ing a 1-1 draw.Na­tion­al for­ward Akim Tou­s­saint had giv­en Paragon, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons a 19th minute lead which last un­til Kee­gan Dos San­tos' 66th minute equalis­er for the Parkites to send the match in­to the penal­ty de­ciders where his team fal­tered mis­er­ably, miss­ing their first two at­tempts.The guilty cul­prits for the Parkites were cap­tain Shawn Lee Quay and Damien Bright, while Kadeem For­tune and Nicholas Ca­ma­cho con­vert­ed.

How­ev­er, Paragon na­tion­al play­ers Kiel Mur­ray and Tou­s­saint scored their team's first three at­tempt while fel­low na­tion­al Christo­pher Sci­pio missed be­fore Co­gie But­ler, an­oth­er na­tion­al play­er sealed the two points.With the penal­ty-flicks win, Paragon now has three points from two match­es af­ter a 3-1 penal­ty-flicks loss to De­fence Force af­ter a 3-3 draw in their open­er on Thurs­day.Petrotrin which came up against De­fence Force last night al­so has three points and the "Teteron Men", two pri­or to last night's clash.To­day, Petrotrin meets Paragon at 3pm, while Queen's Park faces De­fence Force at 7 pm.

RE­SULT

Yes­ter­day's ear­ly re­sults:

Women's Cham­pi­onship:

Check­ers 3

(Char­nice Cato 28th, 66th, Mindy Charles 3rd)

vs Malvern 1 (Tere­sa Leza­ma 65th)

Men's Cham­pi­onship

Paragon 1

(Akim Tou­s­saint 19th)

vs QPCC 1

(Kee­gan Dos San­tos 66th)

Paragon won 4-2 on penal­ty-flicks.

Re­main­ing Big-Four fix­tures

To­day:

Women: Notre Dame vs HM Check­ers, 1 pm; Malvern vs Paragon; 5 pm

Men: Petrotrin vs Paragon, 3 pm; QPCC vs DForce, 7 pm