Siparia Boys RC cap­tured the in­au­gur­al Sco­tia­bank CON­CA­CAF NextPlay Cup with a re­silient ef­fort in the fi­nal against St Do­minic’s RC of Pe­nal at the TTFA Home of Foot­ball Train­ing Field, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va on Sat­ur­day.

It took a 3-2 vic­to­ry on penal­ties af­ter both teams bat­tled to a 2-2 draw in reg­u­la­tion time of the 7 vs 7 match pro­gramme.

The win earned them the NextPlay Cup and medals, as well as an all-ex­pense- paid trip to the 2019 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup Fi­nal at Sol­dier Field in Chica­go, the Unit­ed States on Ju­ly 7th.

Cap­tain Vaughn Clement guid­ed his team to the win with two goals dur­ing reg­u­la­tion, and then he con­vert­ed his penal­ty along with team-mates Ak­il Nev­er­son and Eli­jah La Fleur. St Do­minic’s got their goals in reg­u­la­tion from Der­rel Gar­cia (2) while Adam Pierre and Gar­cia con­vert­ed their kicks.

Siparia se­cured their place in the fi­nal by way of a 2-1 vic­to­ry over Mal­oney Gov­ern­ment, while St Do­minic’s pro­gressed via a 1-0 win over St Agnes AC in the semi­fi­nal.

Siparia then demon­strat­ed good fight and char­ac­ter to pull off the win af­ter los­ing the fi­nal to St Do­minic’s in the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools League St Patrick’s dis­trict fi­nal, al­so on penal­ties ear­li­er this year.

Six­teen Pri­ma­ry Schools ad­vanced to the NextPlay Cup Fi­nal Sat­ur­day af­ter three days of com­pe­ti­tions that saw 46 Pri­ma­ry Schools kick off the com­pe­ti­tion just over a week ago.

Siparia cap­tain Vaughn Clement was ec­sta­t­ic with the vic­to­ry and said, “This was a great ex­pe­ri­ence for all of us. I would like to thank CON­CA­CAF, Sco­tia­bank and the TTFA for help­ing put this tour­na­ment to­geth­er and giv­ing us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to play so many games. It was a re­al­ly en­joy­able tour­na­ment and a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for all of us. We are very hap­py, and hope­ful­ly, this win will make all of our friends, teach­ers and every­one at Siparia proud.”

Clement added, “This is a won­der­ful prize. We are all very ex­cit­ed and over­joyed with it. It will be great to see such a match with the top teams in CON­CA­CAF."

At­tend­ing the Fi­nal was CON­CA­CAF De­vel­op­ment Man­ag­er for the Caribbean An­dre Waugh who thanked the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, the TTFA and part­ners Sco­tia­bank for the com­mit­ment and ef­forts through­out the com­pe­ti­tion.

Oth­er of­fi­cials present were TTFA Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Justin Lat­apy-George, Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor An­ton Corneal and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Mignon King and Patrice Charles, Di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport.