South­ern gi­ants Na­pari­ma Col­lege will be hop­ing to main­tain its top po­si­tion in the 16-team stand­ings in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Sat­ur­day (Oc­to­ber 4) when it faces cel­lar-placed Cara­pichaima Sec­ondary on Lewis Street in San Fer­nan­do from 3.30 pm.

‘Naps’, who are mul­ti­ple-time win­ners of the South Zone League and In­ter­Col ti­tles, are the on­ly team to have not dropped a point to date. Since its open­ing-game vic­to­ry over Trin­i­ty Col­lege East at Lewis Street, in which they de­mol­ished their coun­ter­parts 7-0, the south­ern­ers have main­tained their per­for­mances with a win-win record of five in five.

Their match against win­less Cara­pichaima Sec­ondary may seem like a mis­match, but still, man­ag­er Per­cy Sam­lals­ingh is not tak­ing any chances.

“Not at all, we are not tak­ing any chances against Cara­pichaima this af­ter­noon. You know how foot­ball goes; it is played on the day and set­tled on the day. We are go­ing to main­tain our plan, which is to go out there, keep a clean sheet, put away our chances when they come, and come away with the three points at stake,” Sam­lals­ingh ex­plained.

Cara­pichaima, on the oth­er hand, will be look­ing for its first win of the sea­son, hav­ing con­ced­ed 22 goals in six match­es. The school has come a long way, hav­ing been de­mot­ed from the pre­mier­ship di­vi­sion back in 2022 and spend­ing two sea­sons in the Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion be­fore their el­e­va­tion in 2024.

Coach Jaeel Gef­freys said his ap­proach against the Na­pari­ma lads will be no dif­fer­ent.

“We are go­ing to play open foot­ball and look for goals. Of course, de­fence is an im­por­tant part of it all, but we are an at­tack-mind­ed team. I be­lieve once the play­ers all pull their weight to­day, we can es­cape with our first win,” Gef­freys said.

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, sec­ond in the stand­ings af­ter a 3-1 tri­umph over Trin­i­ty Col­lege East on Wednes­day, pro­pelled them there and will have a tricky test against St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary at their Mu­cu­rapo Road home.

Like Na­pari­ma, the Fa­ti­ma Col­lege lads have not lost for the sea­son. The team’s open­ing NGC Su­per Cup vic­to­ry over St Bene­dict’s has opened their ap­petite for suc­cess, de­spite hav­ing a rel­a­tive­ly young, in­ex­pe­ri­enced squad.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, known pop­u­lar­ly as “The Green Ma­chine”, has not lost for the sea­son ei­ther. In their five match­es so far, the Green Ma­chine has won twice and drawn three times for a to­tal of nine points in the sev­enth po­si­tion.

Mean­while, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San Fer­nan­do) will look to re­bound from their first loss on Wednes­day to Ari­ma North Sec­ondary when it takes on Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la.

With the loss, the Pre­sen­ta­tion men have dropped to fifth in the stand­ings on 12 points, while QRC’s 3-2 vic­to­ry over San Juan North Sec­ondary pushed them to third on 13 points.

Sat­ur­day's match­es

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege vs St Au­gus­tine Sec, 3:30 pm- Fa­ti­ma Ground

Na­pari­ma vs Cara­pichaima, 3:30 pm- Lewis Street

Sig­nal Hill vs Trin­i­ty East, 3:30 pm- Sig­nal Hill Ground

San Juan North vs Mal­ick, 3:30 pm- San Juan Ground

Pres vs QRC, 3:30 pm- Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um

St Bene­dict’s Col­lege vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege, 3:30 pm- Ma­haica Oval

St An­tho­ny’s vs Scar­bor­ough Sec, 3:30 pm- St An­tho­ny’s Ground

St Mary’s Col­lege vs Ari­ma North Sec, 3:30 pm- CIC Ground

Lat­est SS­FL Pre­mier­ship

P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*Pts.

1.*Na­pari­ma Col­lege*5*5*0*0*17*01*16*15

2.*Fa­ti­ma Col­lege*5*4*1*0*14*07*07*13

3.*Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege*6*4*1*1*12*10*02*13

4.*St. Mary’s Col­lege*6*3*3*0*20*07*13*12

5.*Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege*5*4*0*1*12*04*08*12

6.*St. Bene­dict’s Col­lege*5*3*0*2*12*08*04*09

7.*St. Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary*5*2*3*0*07*05*02*09

8.*Ari­ma North Sec­ondary*6*2*2*2*11*10*01*08

9.*Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka*6*2*0*4*11*17*-06*06

10.*Mal­ick Sec­ondary*5*1*1*3*10*11*-01*04

11.*San Juan North Sec­ondary*4*1*1*2*08*10*-02*04

12.*Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary*3*1*0*2*10*07*03*03

13.*St. An­tho­ny’s Col­lege*3*1*0*2*07*07*00*03

14.*Trin­i­ty Col­lege East*6*1*0*5*05*23*-18*03

15.*Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary*6*0*2*4*06*18*-12*02

16.*Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary*6*0*0*6*05*22*-17*00