An­drew Gioan­net­ti

For­ward Keron Clarke scored the win­ning goal and his sev­enth of the qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment to se­cure La Hor­quet­ta SA's first ever qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the Na­tion­al Su­per League, on Sun­day, af­ter the club de­feat­ed Cen­tral's Coos­al's Las Lo­mas 2-1 in the fourth of five Cham­pi­ons of Cham­pi­ons match­es.

Anslem Jack­son, a winger with the most as­sists in the com­pe­ti­tion, scored the open­ing goal and his sec­ond in as many match­es in the sev­enth minute, be­fore Clarke, who has scored in every match thus far, wrapped up the win with a 77th minute ef­fort. Three min­utes lat­er, Las Lo­mas at­tempt­ed a fight­back when Car­lon Hall scored to make it 2-1. With that be­ing the fi­nal goal of the match, La Hor­quet­ta con­firmed a place in the Na­tion­al Su­per League af­ter reach­ing an unas­sail­able 12 points. This on­ly three years af­ter be­ing pro­mot­ed to the East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's Pre­mier Di­vi­sion. Even with a match re­main­ing, La Hor­quet­ta has been con­firmed cham­pi­on of the six-team ta­ble com­pris­ing zon­al as­so­ci­a­tion cham­pi­ons.

Mean­while, Petrotrin Pa­lo Seco kept its chances of qual­i­fy­ing as the sec­ond team alive when Ja­mal Ay­ers scored a dou­ble to lead the club to a 2-1 win over East­ern Coun­ties' Matu­ra Re­unit­ed. Ay­ers opened in the 12th minute and scored the win­ning goal soon af­ter the hour-mark af­ter Keron Vin­cent equalised for Matu­ra a minute be­fore the break. The re­sult ruled Matu­ra out of qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Then, the third match card­ed be­tween the bot­tom two teams, Queen's Park Crick­et Club and D'Bar Goal City failed to kick off.

An un­pre­pared pitch at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain, lack­ing prop­er field mark­ings, goal posts and cor­ner flags were re­port­ed­ly the cause of the can­cel­la­tion, de­spite Goal City mak­ing the trip from To­ba­go. QPCC, us­ing the pitch as its home venue for the match, was said to be re­spon­si­ble.

The match is un­like­ly to re­played, but a de­ci­sion is still pend­ing on the re­sult.

With La Hor­quet­ta tak­ing one of two avail­able qual­i­fy­ing spots, and giv­en Goal City is award­ed three points, three teams re­main with a chance of qual­i­fy­ing as the run­ner-up.

Petrotrin Pa­lo Seco, which cur­rent­ly sits sec­ond will face La Hor­quet­ta in the fi­nal round on Sun­day, from 3.30 pm, be­fore Coos­al's Las Lo­mas meets a de­flat­ed QPCC at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, in the late 6 pm fix­ture. The round will open on Sat­ur­day, with Goal City tak­ing on Matu­ra Re­unit­ed, at Ply­mouth, To­ba­go, from 5 pm.

Re­sults

La Hor­quet­ta SA 2 (Anslem Jack­son 7th, Keron Clarke 77th) v Coos­al's Las Lo­mas 1 (Car­lon Hall 80th)

Petrotrin Pa­lo Seco 2 (Ja­mal Ay­ers 12th, 62nd) v Matu­ra Re­unit­ed 1 (Keron Vin­cent 44th)

QPCC v D'Lime Bar Goal City � Did Not Play

Fix­tures: Sat­ur­day

Goal City v Matu­ra Re­unit­ed, Ply­mouth Recre­ation Ground, To­ba­go, 5 pm Sun­day

Pa­lo Seco v La Hor­quet­ta SA, Pa­lo Seco Recre­ation Ground, 3.30 pm

QPCC v Coos­al's Las Lo­mas Unit­ed, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, PoS, 6 pm

Stand­ings

Teams Pld W D L F A Pts

La Hor SA 4 4 0 0 9 1 12

Pa­lo Seco 4 2 1 1 11 6 7

Las Lo­mas 4 1 1 2 6 6 5

Matu­ra Re 4 0 2 2 6 8 2

Goal City 3 0 1 2 5 6 2

QPCC 3 0 2 1 4 12 1