​Aaron Ray­mond scored the lone goal as five-time win­ners and reign­ing cham­pi­ons Na­pari­ma Col­lege edged St Bene­dict's Col­lege 1-0 to move to the top of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion stand­ings.

With the win at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la Fri­day (no­vem­ber 6), the An­gus Eve-coached Na­pari­ma climbed to 37 points from 15 match­es and top spot ahead of their fi­nal league fix­ture against St An­tho­ny's Col­lege at the Lewis Street home ground in San Fer­nan­do.

This af­ter the much-tout­ed top-of-the-ta­ble en­counter be­tween un­beat­en St Mary’s Col­lege, with 34 points from 14 match­es and ti­tle ri­vals Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, with 31 points, card­ed for St Mary's Col­lege Ground at Ser­pen­tine Road in St Clair, which was post­poned due to a wa­ter­logged field af­ter a heavy af­ter­noon down­pour in Port-of-Spain.

With the match to be re-sched­uled, Eve's play­ers took full ad­van­tage and came away with a tense and nar­row 1-0 win thanks to the diminu­tive Ray­mond, who out­jumped his mark­er in the 18-yard box to plant a down­ward head­er just in­side the left post for a 1-0 lead in the 39th minute.

The match was halt­ed for a few mo­ments in the 69th minute due to a scuf­fle be­tween some play­ers and when it re­sumed, St Bene­dict's Col­lege fi­nal­ly test­ed Na­pari­ma's goal­keep­er Mikhail Clement with a shot of some sub­stance, from about 25-yards which he was equalled too and fist­ed the ef­fort over­bar for a cor­ner.

Na­pari­ma then held firm to hold on­to the vic­to­ry and the valu­able three points to keep its hopes of re­tain­ing the crown alive, and put pres­sure on St Mary's Col­lege and Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary to pick up points in their next en­coun­ters against strug­gling duo, San Juan North Sec­ondary, and Trin­i­ty East Col­lege, re­spec­tive­ly, ahead of their resched­uled meet­ing.

​At the oth­er end of the ta­ble, Trin­i­ty Col­lege East was con­firmed as the first of four teams to be rel­e­gat­ed math­e­mat­i­cal­ly de­spite a spir­it­ed 2-2 draw with fel­low strug­gler Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka in their clash at Trinci­ty.

The vis­it­ing Trin­i­ty Mo­ka took the lead in the 11th minute through Kevez Quin­tero as they went in search of three points to help their own pro­mo­tion­al sur­vival bid, but with­in eight min­utes, Aday­o­mi Hope drew Trin­i­ty Col­lege East lev­el as both teams went in­to the break at 1-1.

With­in two min­utes of the restart, Stephan Seales re­stored Trin­i­ty Mo­ka's lead at 2-1, but with eight min­utes left on the clock, Jak­won How­ell sal­vaged a point for the host while dent­ing the sur­vival hopes of their ri­vals as well.

De­spite the point earned, Trin­i­ty East im­proved to six points with one match left to com­plete their 16-match sched­ule, while San Juan North, four spots above Trin­i­ty East, has 11 points, but failed to ce­ment their spot in the top flight for next sea­son as well af­ter a 6-0 drub­bing at the hands of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Ground, Mu­cu­rapo Road.

The win for Fa­ti­ma was spear­head­ed by record-break­ing cap­tain Ja­haem "Yel­lows" Bai­ley, who scored his fifth hat-trick of the sea­son en­route to break­ing the sea­son scor­ing record of 22 goals set by Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do's Is­rael Ja­cob,

Bai­ley, who en­tered the match one goal shy of Ja­cob scored his goals in the sev­enth, 37th, and 85th min­utes to take his tal­ly to 24 with one match left while Jiari Nan­ton added a late dou­ble in the 78th and 89th, and Jonathan Ma­son, the oth­er in the 87th as Fa­ti­ma moved ahead of idle Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do (26 points) with 29 points af­ter the lat­ters' match away to St An­tho­ny's Col­lege was post­poned due to a wa­ter­logged field in West­moor­ings.

Over in To­ba­go, host Spey­side Sec­ondary got a goal each from Shaquan Charles (38th), Je­re­mi­ah Wick­ham (45+3) and Justin Bernard (89th) in a 3-1 de­feat of St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary.

With the loss, the "Green Ma­chine", who got their lone item from Bernard Cum­mings in the 37th minute at the Spey­side Recre­ation Ground, re­mained in the fourth and fi­nal rel­e­ga­tion spot with 11 points, the same as San Juan North, but the lat­ter has a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence of mi­nus-19 to mi­nus-25 with one match left for each team.

Sec­ond from bot­tom ​Mu­cu­rapo West is the oth­er team stick in the rel­e­ga­tion zone with eight points and was on a bye yes­ter­day ahead of their meet­ing with cru­cial meet­ing on the fi­nal day against Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka, which could well be a win­ner-take-all clash for both teams on Tues­day.

In oth­er match­es yes­ter­day, Mal­ick Sec­ondary whipped host Ari­ma North Sec­ondary 5-1 at the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um in Ari­ma, led by two goals each from Is­rael Out­ar and Keisean Spence, while Cris­tiano Hinds al­so scored twice as Hillview Col­lege's im­pres­sive de­but cam­paign con­tin­ued with a 3-1 spank­ing of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, who sit just above the drop zone with 12 points.

Yes­ter­day's re­sults

Mal­ick Sec 5 (Is­rael Out­ar 32nd, 60th, Keisean Spence 41st, 49th, Joshua Gabriel 90+3 ) vs Ari­ma North Sec 1 (Janio Mar­cano 51st)

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege 6 (Ja­haem Bai­ley 7th, 37th, 85th, Jiari Nan­ton 78th, 89th, Jonathan Ma­son 87th) vs San Juan North Sec 0

Hillview Col­lege 3 (Cris­tiano Hinds 15th, 60th pen, Dar­nell Wal­cott 75th) vs QRC 1 (Shea Dol­ly 45+2 pen)

Spey­side Sec 3 (Shaquan Charles 38th, Je­re­mi­ah Wick­ham 45+3, Justin Bernard 89th) vs St Au­gus­tine Sec 1 (Bernard Cum­mings 37th)

Na­pari­ma Col­lege 1 (Aaron Ray­mond 31s) vs St Bene­dict's Col­lege 0

Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 2 (Aday­o­mi Hope 19th, Jak­won How­ell 82nd) vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka 2 (Kevez Quin­tero 11th, Stephan Seales 47th)

St Mary’s Col­lege vs Sig­nal Hill Sec - post­poned due to wa­ter­logged field

St An­tho­ny’s vs Pre­sen­ta­tion (Chag) - post­poned due to wa­ter­logged field

Mu­cu­rapo West - bye

Lat­est SS­FL Stand­ing

Pos Teams P W D L GF GA GD Pts

1. Na­pari­ma 15 12 1 2 46 10 36 37

2. St Mary’s 14 11 3 0 37 9 28 36

3. Sig­nal Hill 14 11 1 2 33 13 20 34

4. St Bene­dict’s 16 9 4 3 41 12 29 31

5. Fa­ti­ma 15 8 5 2 45 20 25 29

6. Hillview 15 9 2 4 43 24 19 29

7. Pre­sen­ta­tion 14 7 5 2 27 15 13 26

8. St An­tho­ny’s 14 6 3 5 25 24 1 21

9. Spey­side 15 6 2 7 23 37 -14 20

10. Ari­ma North 15 6 1 8 31 36 -5 19

11. Mal­ick 15 5 1 9 34 35 -1 16

12. QRC 15 3 3 9 14 24 -10 12

13. San Juan North 15 3 2 10 17 36 -19 11

14. St Au­gus­tine 15 3 2 10 23 48 -25 11

15. Trin­i­ty Mo­ka 15 2 4 9 26 53 -27 10

16. Mu­cu­rapo West 15 2 2 11 15 50 -35 8

17. Trin­i­ty East 15 1 3 11 18 52 -34 6

Tues­day's (No­vem­ber 10) match­es

Ari­ma North vs QRC, Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um, Ari­ma

Mu­cu­rapo West vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka, Mu­cu­rapo West Sec Grd, Mu­cu­rapo Road

Na­pari­ma vs St An­tho­ny’s, Lewis Street, San Fer­nan­do

Pre­sen­ta­tion vs Hillview, Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la

Spey­side vs Mal­ick, Spey­side Rec. Grd, Spey­side

St Au­gus­tine vs Fa­ti­ma, St Au­gus­tine Sec. Grd, War­ren Street

St Mary’s vs San Juan North , St Mary’s Col­lege Grd, Ser­pen­tine Road

Trin­i­ty East vs Sig­nal Hill, Trin­i­ty Col­lege East Grd, Trinci­ty

Lead­ing scor­ers

24 - Ja­haem Bai­ley (Fa­ti­ma)

16 - Adasa Richard­son (Na­pari­ma)

14 - Cris­tiano Hinds (Hillview), Keisean Spence (Mal­ick)

13 - Jmeke Watkins (Sig­nal Hill)

11 - Kanye Glas­gow (St Bene­dict’s)

10 - Jae­don Thomas (St Mary’s)

8 - Is­rael Hold­er (St Au­gus­tine)

7 - Jay­lon Forbes (St Bene­dict’s), Justin Bernard (Spey­side)

6 - Dim­itrie Jones (Ari­ma North), Aidan Sinanan-Mc Don­ald (Pre­sen­ta­tion), Mar­lon Jor­dan (Mu­cu­rapo West), Je­di­ael Mar­celle (Sig­nal Hill), Orande Par­ris (St Bene­dict’s), Is­rael Out­ar (Mal­ick)

5 - Je­di­ah David, Jae­den Samuel (Ari­ma North), Jay­lon Roberts (St Mary’s), Karim Milling­ton, Mar­ley Ram­dass (St An­tho­ny’s), Je­re­mai Nan­ton, Jonathan Ma­son (Fa­ti­ma), Ackim Dun­can (Sig­nal Hill), Jaylen Hinds, Ta­fari Kerr (Hillview), Os­hea Wat­son (Pre­sen­ta­tion), Samuel Bal­four (St Bene­dict’s), Kevez Quin­tero (Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka),

Jak­won How­ell (Trin­i­ty East)

4 - Micha’el John, (Ari­ma North), Jay­lon Car­ring­ton, (St Bene­dict’s), Zahlon Bernard, Luke Ec­cles (St Au­gus­tine Sec), Tyrese Hard­ing (Fa­ti­ma), Gabriel Brit­to (San Juan North), Riquelme Phillips (Spey­side), Aden Mon­tano (Pre­sen­ta­tion), Jah­seem Pierre, Nyrell Roberts (QRC), Malachi Roach (Mal­ick), Nadeem Grant (St Mary’s), Je­re­mi­ah Wick­ham (Spey­side)

3 - Daniel Lewis, Heziki­ah Charles (Hillview), Stephan Seales, An­dre Con­stan­tine, Jashon Forde (Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka), Zaa’van Joseph, Jay­lon Roberts, Jay­lon Man­swell (St Mary’s), Jah­da Ri­ley (Mal­ick), Dono­van Dray­ton, Jabari Ro­driguez, Im­man­u­al Wright, Jaquan Phillip (Na­pari­ma), Nicholas Cyrus, Oma­leke Paul (San Juan North), Eli­jah David (St Bene­dict’s), Gio­van­ni Bartholomew, Malique Mar­shall (St An­tho­ny’s), Eli­jah Di­az (Trin­i­ty Col­lege East),