Nigel Si­mon

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Goal­keep­er Levi Fer­nan­dez pulled off two saves in the penal­ty-kicks shoot-out as Na­pari­ma Col­lege edged ri­val Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do 4-3 in sud­den-death penal­ty-kicks to se­cure a 16th South Zone Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Co­ca-Co­la In­ter­Col crown yes­ter­day.

Billed as the "South SS­FL Clas­si­co” both Na­pari­ma, the new­ly crowned Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cham­pi­on for a third time, and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, failed to cre­ate many clear-cut chances dur­ing the 90 min­utes of reg­u­la­tion which end­ed 0-0 to the dis­ap­point­ment of the 4,000-plus spec­ta­tors at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la.

In fact, the best chance came in the 78th minute for na­tion­al Un­der-20 mid­field­er Mark Ramdeen but he turned a left-sided cen­tre from De­clan Mar­celle over bar from on the edge of the six-yard box.

Ramdeen al­most caught out Pre­sen­ta­tion on a late break­away as well but he was dragged down at the edge of the 18-yard box by de­fend­er Dar­nel Hospedales, who was right­ful­ly shown a straight red card by the ref­er­ee.

Pre­sen­ta­tion, on the oth­er hand, start­ed bright­ly with speedy Jor­dan Ri­ley and nip­py mid­field­ers Om­ri Baird and Jaiye Shep­pard, their main threats.

How­ev­er, they failed to carve out any re­al clear-cut chances, with Shep­pard even­tu­al­ly be­ing re­placed by Jardel Sin­clair with five min­utes left hav­ing toiled from the 25th-minute on­wards, hav­ing turned his right an­kle.

In the end, the match was right­ful­ly de­cid­ed on penal­ty-kicks where both goal­keep­ers staked claims for the end of sea­son in­di­vid­ual award ho­n­ours.

Pre­sen­ta­tion, which led the league for most of the sea­son on­ly to fal­ter on the fi­nal day, was first to kick with Ri­ley see­ing his ef­fort bril­liant­ly kept out by Na­pari­ma cus­to­di­an Fer­nan­dez div­ing low to his right, on­ly for op­po­site num­ber, Jabari Gray to de­ny Jeron Pan­tor as well.

Baird was up next for Pre­sen­ta­tion and he con­vert­ed his at­tempt while Ramdeen then saw his ef­fort skimmed off the cross­bar.

Ac­k­eel Ja­cob then missed Pre­sen­ta­tion’s third at­tempt off the post but Gray then su­perbly de­nied Shoaib Khan to keep his team ahead 1-0 af­ter three at­tempts each.

Jeron Frank then missed with Pre­sen­ta­tion’s fourth at­tempt and Daquon Fos­ter scored to get Na­pari­ma back on lev­el terms as the pres­sure point was boil­ing over on the field, and among the ner­vous spec­ta­tors as well, on both sides.

Aleem Bar­clay brought calm to the Pre­sen­ta­tion side of sup­port­ers when he scored the fifth at­tempt while the burly Tyrique An­drews al­so net­ted with ease to even the match at 2-2 to force sud­den-death kicks.

Sub­sti­tute Sin­clair showed a cool head when he buried his ef­fort while Ship­p­ley al­so con­vert­ed for Na­pari­ma.

Juaval Roberts then saw his ef­fort smash off the right up­right while Gray did well to de­ny Mar­celle, with an ac­ro­bat­ic, one-hand­ed save.

De­fend­er Zion Allen look a ner­vous man as he walked up to take Pre­sen­ta­tion’s eighth at­tempt and he then blast­ed his ef­fort high over bar, giv­ing Na­pari­ma the chance to take the ti­tle which they did when Isa Bram­ble, slot­ted home in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner, just past the fin­ger­tips of Gray to earn the An­gus Eve-coached team a 4-3 tri­umph and a Na­tion­al In­ter­Col semi­fi­nal date with the win­ner of to­day’s na­tion­al quar­ter­fi­nal be­tween North Zone and six-time na­tion­al In­ter­Col cham­pi­ons St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege and Cen­tral Zone win­ner's Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va from 4.30 pm.

East cham­pi­on for the past three years, San Juan North Sec­ondary and To­ba­go cham­pi­on Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary will lock horns in the first na­tion­al semi­fi­nal on Thurs­day at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar in Ari­ma from 3.30 pm while Na­pari­ma will face the St An­tho­ny’s/Cara­pichi­ma East win­ner a day lat­er at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la with the fi­nal set for De­cem­ber 4.