Nigel Si­mon

Colom­bian goal­keep­er Ale­jan­dro Figueroa came up big for Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion pulling off a save in the penal­ty-kicks shoot-out to lead his team past North East Stars 4-3 af­ter a 0-0 draw in the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Wednes­day night.How­ev­er, de­spite Figueroa's hero­ics in the shoot-out which moved his team ahead of San Juan Jabloteh (2005 & 2006) and Joe Pub­lic (2009 & 2011) as win­ners of the ti­tle the most times, he was over­shad­owed on the night by his op­po­site num­ber Cleon John, who was even­tu­al­ly named the tour­na­ment's "Most Valu­able Play­er" af­ter pulling off a num­ber of saves to keep his team in the match up to the full-time whis­tle.

Go­ing in­to the match, W Con­nec­tion was very wary of the An­gus Eve-coached Stars out­fit, hav­ing de­feat­ed the San­gre Grande-based club by the same 4-3 mar­gin on penal­ty kicks on May 8 for the Lu­cozade Sport Goal Shield ti­tle.And from ear­ly on, W Con­nec­tion, win­ners of the Pro Bowl in 2004 and 2007 and al­so three-time run­ners-up, looked de­ter­mined to squash any hopes of Stars ex­act­ing re­venge.Eight min­utes af­ter the first blow of ref­er­ee Neil Brizan's whis­tle to sig­nal the fi­nal of the 2012/2013 sea­son, W Con­nec­tion cre­at­ed an open­ing with An­drei Pacheco play­ing a one-two with cap­tain Clyde Leon at the top of Stars' 18-yard box, be­fore the lat­ter flashed a shot across the goal from an acute an­gle, which the on­rush­ing Neil Ben­jamin Jr just failed to get a touch on at the far post.

At the oth­er end of the field in the 11th minute, the live­ly Cor­nell Glen found the on­rush­ing El­ton John free on the right, but in­stead of fir­ing at once on goal, he hes­i­tat­ed and was closed down by the re­treat­ing W Con­nec­tion de­fence.Four min­utes lat­er, the nip­py Kennedy Hink­son then went on a so­lo run for Stars but his curl­ing right foot­er to the far post was smart­ly plucked out of the air by Figueroa.W Con­nec­tion then went in­to the at­tack and pinned Stars back for a while forc­ing goal­keep­er John in­to a few saves to keep the scores at 0-0 at the half.First, John did well to keep out a sting­ing left-foot­ed free kick from Pacheco low to his right af­ter Jo­evin Jones was clum­si­ly brought down out­side the 18-yard box by Keryn Navar­ro in the 23rd minute and in the 32nd minute the for­mer De­fence Force and San Juan Jabloteh shot-block­er was up to the task again, this time palm­ing away a Leon scorcher which fell nice­ly for Ben­jamin Jr, who dragged the ball wide of an open goal to let Stars off the hook.

The match then seemed set for a qui­et end­ing to the first half on­ly for a small brawl to erupt af­ter Stars' Jeromie Williams sent Ben­jamin Jr crum­bling to the turf from a hard tack­le.Ben­jamin's team­mate Daneil Cyrus, who was some dis­tance away in his own half, then raced over to the in­ci­dent in a Us­ain Bolt-like fash­ion and be­gan shov­ing Williams, be­fore more play­ers got in­volved which led to yel­low cards for W Con­nec­tion's Figueroa and Cyrus as well as Stars' de­fend­er Ka­reem Moses.The sec­ond half start­ed much the same as the first with W Con­nec­tion tak­ing the match to its op­po­nent, but un­for­tu­nate­ly for the "Savonet­ta Boys" they were con­front­ed by an in form John, who was shock­ing­ly left out the So­ca War­riors squad for its two match Eu­ro­pean tour this week.The next W Con­nec­tion at­tempt to be de­nied by John was Suri­namese Ste­fano Ri­js­sel's in the 56th minute who saw his right-foot­ed at­tempt from in­side the area kept out while in the 56th minute the Stars cus­to­di­an turned away a Cyrus long-range ef­fort.

He was not done show­ing off his trade to na­tion­al coach Hut­son "Bar­ber" Charles, who was in the crowd as he blocked out Kurt Fred­er­ick's 65th-minute close range shot off a feed by Ri­js­sel, prompt­ing a sup­port­er in­to shout­ing: "The best keep­er in T&T!"As if he was giv­ing the sup­port­er an en­core, John fist­ed down a fierce left-foot­ed dri­ve from Fred­er­ick with nine min­utes left in the match strike, but his ef­forts on the night al­so came to nil in the clos­ing sec­onds when left back Kevon Vil­laroel was robbed of the ball in his own penal­ty area by a qui­et Jo­evin Jones.How­ev­er, his curl­ing ef­fort to the far cor­ner was de­flect­ed away for a cor­ner to send the match in­to penal­ty kicks, where it was de­ja vu for both teams, with the out­come be­ing the same as on May 3–vic­to­ry for W Con­nec­tion, and de­feat for Stars.

Stars was first to take its penal­ty and got off to a poor start with Figueroa sav­ing a weak at­tempt by Glen. How­ev­er, Jones fired wide for W Con­nec­tion with his team's first shot.Eli­jah Man­ners and Ka­reem Moses then con­vert­ed for Stars while Sil­vio Spann and Ger­ard Williams al­so scored for W Con­nec­tion for both teams to stay lev­el at 2-2 af­ter three at­tempts each.Up next for Stars was John (El­ton) and af­ter wait­ing al­most an eter­ni­ty to take his penal­ty, he skimmed the cross­bar while Hashim Ar­cia scored to put W Con­nec­tion ahead at 3-2.Need­ing to score to keep his team alive, Kennedy Hink­son blast­ed past Figueroa, but 39-year-old Eli­jah Joseph, who has been at the club since its Pro League de­but in 1999, then ri­fled home his team's fifth at­tempt to seal vic­to­ry and with it, the club's 31st ti­tle in team his­to­ry–all of which he and coach Charles-Fevri­er have been in­volved in.It was al­so the third time the W Con­nec­tion had won the ti­tle on penal­ties, af­ter beat­ing Jabloteh (2004) and Su­per­star Rangers (2007) by the same route, af­ter 2-2 draws.

Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl Fi­nal

W Con­nec­tion 0

vs North East Stars 0 -

W Con­nec­tion won 4-3 on penal­ty kicks

In­di­vid­ual awards:

Top Scor­er: Kevon Carter

(De­fence Force) - (3) $2,000

Most Valu­able Play­er: Cleon John (North East Stars) - $2,000

Most Out­stand­ing Coach:

Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er -

(W Con­nec­tion) - $3,000

North East Stars–Cleon John (gk, capt), Ka­reem Moses (Yel­low Card), Kevon Vil­laroel, Jeromie Williams (Eli­jah Man­ners 55th minute), El­ton John, Gary Glas­gow (Jayson Joseph 54th minute), Cor­nell Glen, Kaashif Thomas (Kei­thy Simp­son 62nd minute) (Yel­low Card), Glen­ton Wolfe, Kennedy Hink­son, Keryn Navar­ro

Subs not used: Adri­an Fon­cette (Gk), Ker­ry Bap­tiste, Akiel Gue­vara, Shane Hos­p­i­dales

Coach: An­gus Eve

W Con­nec­tion–Ale­jan­dro Figueroa (gk)(Yel­low Card), Clyde Leon (capt.) (Yel­low Card) (Sil­vio Spann 80th minute), Daneil Cyrus (Yel­low Card), Eli­gah Joseph, Ger­rard Williams (Yel­low Card), An­drei Pacheco (Jo­mal Williams 77th minute) (Yel­low Card), Chris­t­ian Viveros, Ste­fano Ri­js­sel, Kurt Fred­er­ick, Jo­evin Jones, Neil Ben­jamin (Hashim Ar­cia 46th minute)

Subs not used: Aque­lius Sylvester (gk), Jer­rel Brit­to, Alvin Jones, Tremain Shayn Paul

Coach: Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er