Fa­ti­ma Col­lege com­plet­ed a spec­tac­u­lar “triple crown” at the Sec­ondary Schools Bas­ket­ball League (SS­BL) Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships, which reached a thrilling con­clu­sion this past Fri­day.

The North-based in­sti­tu­tion proved un­stop­pable, clinch­ing the Un­der-20 and U-17 ti­tles to com­ple­ment their U-13 vic­to­ry from ear­li­er in the week in the three-day com­pe­ti­tion, host­ed by the T&T Schools Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTS­BA) at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do.

In the U-20 boys’ fi­nal, Fa­ti­ma dis­man­tled Hillview Col­lege with a con­vinc­ing 73-45 vic­to­ry. Jeda­iah King, who earned the “Most Valu­able Play­er” (MVP) ho­n­ours, notched 37 points that in­clud­ed five shots from be­yond the three-point arc. While Hillview set­tled for sil­ver, Sig­nal Hill nar­row­ly claimed third place with a 43-42 nail-biter against St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, led by 12 points from Ethan Wyke.

​Fa­ti­ma’s suc­cess ex­tend­ed to the U-17 Boys di­vi­sion, where it de­feat­ed Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 62-37. Idris Mar­tin led the scor­ing with 25 points, while Zachary Julien was named the di­vi­sion’s MVP for his con­sis­tent im­pact through­out the tour­na­ment. In a bat­tle for third place, Ch­agua­nas North edged out Sig­nal Hill 48-47, dri­ven by Naiel Jack­man’s 19-point con­tri­bu­tion.

​In the U-15 boys’ cat­e­go­ry, St Mary’s Col­lege stood tall, de­feat­ing Ari­ma North Sec­ondary 42-24. Aiden Noel was the stand­out, scor­ing 14 points and right­ful­ly earn­ing the MVP tro­phy for the “Saints.”

The Open Girls’ ti­tle went to Five Rivers Sec­ondary, who over­came St Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain (SJC­POS) 22-15, spear­head­ed by MVP Akeira Charles. Fyz­abad An­gli­can round­ed out the podi­um in third place for the girls’ di­vi­sion.

​The mo­men­tum for Fri­day’s fi­nals was built on Wednes­day, where the younger di­vi­sions and girls’ de­vel­op­men­tal cat­e­gories took cen­tre stage. In the U-13 boys di­vi­sion, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege sig­nalled its in­ten­tions ear­ly by de­feat­ing Hillview to take the top spot, with Eli­jah Corentin pick­ing up the MVP award.

In the U-15 Girls cat­e­go­ry, SJC­POS show­cased their depth and dis­ci­pline, fin­ish­ing ahead of Five Rivers and Pa­lo Seco, while Li Mob­hair was recog­nised as the di­vi­sion’s MVP for her stel­lar play.

​TTS­BA pres­i­dent Al­li­son Bastien ex­pressed im­mense pride in the tour­na­ment’s ex­e­cu­tion and the qual­i­ty of the ath­letes. “The lev­el of play we wit­nessed this week proves that the fu­ture of T&T bas­ket­ball is in good hands,” said Bastien.

The TTS­BA pres­i­dent added, “We con­grat­u­late all the win­ners and thank the schools, par­ents, of­fi­cials, fans and, most im­por­tant­ly, the stu­dent ath­letes for bring­ing the en­er­gy to Pleas­antville.”

​In a press re­lease, the TTS­BA ac­knowl­edged the vi­tal role of the me­dia and stake­hold­ers in el­e­vat­ing the pro­file of youth sports, say­ing: “Your com­mit­ment to high­light­ing the achieve­ments of our youth ath­letes en­sures their hard work reach­es a na­tion­al au­di­ence.” The as­so­ci­a­tion went on to thank spon­sors RBC Roy­al Bank, Next Lev­el Per­for­mance, and the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT), “whose con­tri­bu­tions were in­stru­men­tal in mak­ing this event a re­sound­ing suc­cess.”

Fri­day's re­sults

U-20 Boys

Fi­nal: Fa­ti­ma 73 (Jeda­iah King 37) vs Hillview 45

Third-place: Sig­nal Hill 43 (Ethan Wyke 12) vs St Bene­dict’s 42

Open Girls

Five Rivers Sec­ondary 22 (Akeira Charles 18) vs STJ­POS 15

U-17 Boys

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege 62 (Idris Mar­tin 25) vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 37

Third-place: Sig­nal Hill 47 vs Ch­agua­nas North 48 (Naiel Jack­man 19)

U-15 Boys

St Mary’s 42 (Aiden Noel 14) vs Ari­ma North Sec­ondary 24

Ho­n­our roll

Fri­day

U-20 Boys: 1 Fa­ti­ma, 2 Hillview, 3 Sig­nal Hill (MVP - Jeda­iah King, Fa­ti­ma)

U-17 Boys: 1 Fa­ti­ma, 2 Trin­i­ty East, 3 Ch­agua­nas North (MVP - Zachary Julien, Fa­ti­ma)

U-15 Boys: 1 St Mary's, 2 Ari­ma North, 3 Sig­nal Hill (MVP - Aiden Noel, St Mary's)

Open Girls: 1 Five Rivers, 2 STJ­POS, 3 Fyz­abad An­gli­can (MVP - Akeira Charles, Five Rivers)

Wednes­day

U-13 Boys: 1 Fa­ti­ma, 2 Hillview (MVP - Eli­jah Corentin, Fa­ti­ma)

U-15 Girls: 1 STJ­POS, 2 Five Rivers, 3 Pa­lo Seco (MVP - Li Mob­hair, STJ­POS)