Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar and Hashim Ar­cia scored first-half goals as De­fence Force held off a de­plet­ed W Con­nec­tion 2-1 to lift the $100,000 Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl ti­tle at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va on Fri­day night.

The win hand­ed coach Mar­vin Gor­don his first tro­phy since be­ing pro­mot­ed to the po­si­tion of head­coach 17 months ago fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er Ross Rus­sell, who was in charge of the army/coast­guard com­bi­na­tion unit.

Play­ing in the fi­nal match of the 2015/2016 do­mes­tic sea­son, both teams en­tered the match in two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent moods as Gor­don had a full com­pliement of play­ers to choose from apart from de­fend­er Cur­tis Gon­za­les while W Con­nec­tion's Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er, was with­out 12 first team reg­u­lars and six oth­ers due to na­tion­al team com­mit­ments.

Gon­za­les and W Con­nec­tion play­ers' Jo­mal Williams, Shah­don Win­ches­ter, Alvin Jones, Daneil Cyrus, Hugh­tun Hec­tor and Tris­ton Hodge were all away on in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty with the T&T se­nior team for a three-game friend­ly tour, while Ger­ard Williams and goal­keep­er Ju­lani Archibald (St. Kitts/Nevis), Briel Thomas and An­fer­nee Fred­er­ick (Do­mini­ca), Ja­mal Charles (Grena­da) and Dim­itrie Apai (Suri­name) were all sum­moned to their re­spec­tive na­tion­al teams for Caribbean Foot­ball Union Cup qual­i­fiers which be­gin this week.

The St Lu­cian-born Charles-Fevri­er, a for­mer T&T na­tion­al coach al­so had to cope with the ab­sence of Un­der-18 play­ers Isa­iah Hud­son, Ke­ston Julien, Ker­ron Ma­son and Isa­iah Gar­cia, and 19-year-olds Ko­ri Cu­pid and Jabari Mitchell, all com­mit­ted to the T&T Un­der-20 team prepar­ing for CFU Un­der-20 qual­i­fiers from June 15 to 19.

But de­spite be­ing de­prived of its key play­ers, it was W Con­nec­tion which came clos­est to go­ing ahead via vet­er­an strik­er turn mid­field­er An­dre Tou­s­saint who had a 16th-minute ef­fort cleared off the line by de­fend­er Jalani Fe­lix, and two min­utes lat­er team-mate Ma­lik St. Prix head­ed over­bar off a left sided cen­tre from cap­tain Kurt Fred­er­ick.

Those two close calls seem to in­ject life in­to De­fence Force as Balt­haz­ar put the "Teteron Boys" ahead in the 27th minute when he slid in be­yond the W Con­nec­tion de­fence to re-di­rect a left side Ak­lie Ed­wards' cross past goal­keep­er Ter­rence Lewis.

Three min­utes lat­er, for­mer W Con­nec­tion strik­er Ar­cia then dou­bled his new em­ploy­ers lead with a clever chip over Lewis af­ter hold­ing off a chal­lenge from de­fend­er Je­lani Pe­ters.

Lewis, W Con­nec­tion's sec­ond choice goal­keep­er, then kept his team in the match as De­fence Force went in search for a third goal in the 38th minute as he made a bril­liant div­ing save to his right to keep out a left-foot­ed blast from Ross Rus­sell Jr.

Gor­don's men then suf­fered a set-back with Ar­cia, be­ing forced off with a sus­pect­ed ham­string strain, just be­fore the half-time whis­tle, with mid­field­er Akeem Roach be­ing in­tro­duced on the re­sump­tion.

W Con­nec­tion need­ed a quick start to the sec­ond-half and with­in two min­utes of the re­sump­tion al­most cut the lead in half when an­oth­er Fred­er­ick cross was met with a Tou­s­saint head­er, but it was kept out by even­tu­al fi­nal "Most Valu­able Play­er" and goal­keep­er, Shel­don Clarke.

Three min­utes Clarke was called in­to ac­tion again to stop against Kevon God­dard ef­fort fol­low­ing a sweep­ing move by Con­nec­tion five min­utes be­fore the break.

De­fence Force then had two chances of its own to in­crease the put the re­sult be­yond doubt, but sub­sti­tute Roach fired wide of the tar­get in the 51st-minute from a feed by strik­er De­vorn Jorsling, and the lat­ter was again the provider as Rus­sell Jr, al­so failed to hit the tar­get from in­side the 18-yard box.

Chances were now com­ing at a fre­quent at both ends of the field and in the 61st-minute Tou­s­saint flashed a shot over­bar and mo­ments lat­er Clarke was forced in­to a save by An­drews.

But with 13 min­utes left in the match, Clarke was fi­nal­ly beat­en when An­drews un­leashed a 30-yard blast which found the top cor­ner of the goal from a set piece.

An­drews had a sim­i­lar at­tempt nine min­utes lat­er but was frac­tion­al­ly off with his at­tempt off a short Fred­er­ick free-kick fly­ing over­bar, how­ev­er, De­fence Force man­aged to hold on­to the de­served lead for the win and its first tro­phy since 2013.

The vic­to­ry al­so avenged a 4-0 loss in the fi­nal of this sea­son's Toy­ota Clas­sic last De­cem­ber to the same W Con­nec­tion club, four-time win­ners of the Pro Bowl.

Ar­cia salutesW Con­nec­tion

Af­ter the game, Ar­cia first thanked his for­mer club W Con­nec­tion for con­tribut­ing a lot in his de­vel­op­ment as a play­er but was al­so elat­ed to taste suc­cess with his new team."It has tak­en some time for me to get in­to grove at De­fence Force, but I am hap­py to help my new team be­come cham­pi­ons again, " he added.

Gor­don, who led the team to a third place fin­ish in the League said the sea­son turned out de­cent in the end as his team was able to lift the Pro Bowl ti­tle as the fo­cus was to win the league.

An as­sis­tant to Ross Rus­sell when De­fence Force won the Pro Bowl in 2012, Dig­i­cel Pro League in 2010/11 and 2012/13 and the 2009 First Cit­i­zens Cup Gor­don said: "We weren't con­sis­tent in the league and even missed fin­ish­ing in the top two.

"We had some bad patch­es but it was learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for me in terms of be­ing a head coach for the first time in a full sea­son. Next sea­son I will be more pre­pared.

"We were able to end with the Pro Bowl ti­tle which is for the en­tire De­fence Force–not just for me and of course the play­ers who have worked re­al­ly hard for me, but for the peo­ple at De­fence Force who do every­thing to make sure we can come out and play."

With re­gards to the fi­nal, the for­mer ro­bust mid­field­er said, "It was a great game be­cause W Con­nec­tion re­al­ly came and play re­gard­less of hav­ing a num­ber of younger play­ers. They put up a good fight and both teams had chances, but we could have put away the game ear­ly by tak­ing our oth­er chances."

Charles-Fevri­er callsin re­serves

De­spite the out­come Charles-Fevri­er, who field­ed a start­ing XI that in­clud­ed 19-year-old se­nior team debu­tant Jor­dan Ri­ley, and a bench full of Re­serve Team play­ers said he was proud of his team.

"We cre­at­ed four clear cut chances in the first half and weren't able to score one, and made it very dif­fi­cult for our­selves. But in terms of ter­ri­to­r­i­al play we had much more con­trol. We were al­ways in the game al­though De­fence Force went two goals up, but in the end in­ex­pe­ri­ence let us down.

We didn't have the amount of ex­pe­ri­ence on the pitch to re­al­ly help us to over­haul a good De­fence Force team, but I am very proud of the ef­fort from our play­ers. I felt the team we had tonight was ca­pa­ble of win­ning the game but it just wasn't our night."

De­spite not tak­ing the crown Charles-Fevri­er was pleased with the cam­paign as the Cou­va-based club won the First Cit­i­zens Cup, while it had to set­tle for run­ners-up in the Lu­cozade Sport Goal Shield and Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Cham­pi­onship, won by Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed and Cen­tral FC, re­spec­tive­ly.

Re­sults

De­fence Force 2 (Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar 27th, Hashim Ar­cia 30th) vs W Con­nec­tion 1 (Aikim An­drews 77th)

Teams at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um on Fri­day

W Con­nec­tion: 1.Ter­rence Lewis (GK), 2.Kurt Fred­er­ick (Capt.), 4.Mau­rice Ford, 14.An­dre Tou­s­saint, 17.Aikim An­drews, 23.Kevon God­dard, 26.Pao­lo De La Guardia Al­varez, 27.Je­lani Fe­lix, 43.Ma­lik St. Prix, 48.Zaine Pierre (42.Stephon Smith 65th minute), 65.Jor­dan Ri­ley (30.Mark Ramdeen 73rd minute)

Un­used sub­sti­tutes: 21.Ish­mael Salaam (GK), 36.Matthew Joseph, 39.Jeron Pan­tor, 44.Ju­dah St. Louis, 45.Jar­od Gor­don

Coach: Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er

De­fence Force: 25.Shel­don Clarke (GK), 2.Glynn Franklyn, 3.Ja­mali Gar­cia, 7.Jalani Fe­lix, 9.De­vorn Jorsling (26.Richard Roy 73rd minute), 10.Hashim Ar­cia (11.Akeem Roach 46th minute) (Yel­low Card), 17.Ross Rus­sell Jr., 20.Levi Ser­ries (4.Dave Long 81st minute), 21.Ak­lie Ed­wards, 52.Stephan Camp­bell, 99.Jer­wyn Balt­haz­ar

Un­used sub­sti­tutes: 13. Mar­vin Jones, 16.Kel­lon Ser­rette, 30.Kishun Seecha­ran, 80.Aaron Enil (GK)

Coach: Mar­vin Gor­don

Ref­er­ee: Key­on Yorke

As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee 1: Caleb Wales

As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee 2: Kevin Charles

Fourth Of­fi­cial: Ce­cile Hinds