NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­on De­fence Force stayed on course to com­plete the dou­ble when they bat­tled past Club San­do FC 1-0 in the First Cit­i­zens Cup quar­ter-fi­nal at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va on Wednes­day night.

For the new­ly crowned T&T Pre­mier League Tier I cham­pi­ons, De­fence Force FC, Shaquille Bertrand net­ted the de­ci­sive item in the 10th minute to get the bet­ter of Club San­do 1-0 and a se­mi-fi­nal meet­ing with MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed.

Ear­li­er on, Tier II Group Two lead­ers, De­fence Force stunned Tier I club Prison Ser­vice FC 3-1 with all four goals com­ing in the sec­ond half.

Two min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half, teenaged winger Theo Crovador fired De­fence Force II in­to the lead, but in the 55th minute Per­ry Par­ris drew Prison Ser­vice lev­el.

With the match seem head­ed for penal­ty-kicks, Dwight Quin­tero re­stored the lead for De­fence Force II in the 88th minute and three min­utes in­to time added-on, Mark Grif­fith sealed the win with his team's third item to set up a se­mi-fi­nal with Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC. 

At the Phase II La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, Kwame Hazel scored in the 19th minute, and An­dre Al­fred in the 68th to lead Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed past Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed, who got a late item from Joshua No­ray in the 80th in their quar­ter-fi­nal.

In the sec­ond match, Ka­reem 'Scoobee' Fre­itas made it three goals in his last two match­es, with a dou­ble in Po­lice FC's 3-0 de­feat of San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants.

Fre­itas opened the scor­ing in the 18th minute for a 1-0 half-time ad­van­tage be­fore he com­plet­ed his dou­ble in the 62nd, fol­lowed by Jabari Mitchell's 85th minute penal­ty-kick.

The dates and venues for the semi­fi­nals and fi­nal are yet to be de­ter­mined due to T&T se­nior na­tion­al team en­gage­ment in the Afro-Caribbean Uni­ty Cup in Eng­land next week with Ja­maica, Ghana and Nige­ria from May 27 to 31 which will be fol­lowed by two Sec­ond Round CON­CA­CAF World Cup qual­i­fiers, first on June 6 at home to St Kitts/Nevis and four days lat­er away to Cos­ta Ri­ca. The tour­na­ment win­ners will col­lect $100,000 and the run­ners-up $50,000.

Wednes­day's First Cit­i­zens Cup quar­ter­fi­nal re­sults:

Venue: Phase II La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, La Hor­quet­ta:

MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed 2 (Kwame Hazel 19th, An­dre Al­fred 68th) vs Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed 1 (Joshua No­ray 80th)

Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC 3 (Ka­reem Fre­itas 18th, 62nd, Jabari Mitchell 85th pen) vs San Fer­an­n­do Gi­ants 0

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va:

De­fence Force (Tier II) 3 (Theo Crovador 47th, Dwight Quin­tero 88th, Mark Grif­fith 90+3) vs Prison Ser­vice FC 1 (Per­ry Par­ris 55th)

De­fence Force Tier I (Shaquille Bertrand 10th) vs Club San­do FC 0

Semi­fi­nals:

De­fence Force (Tier 1) vs MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed

De­fence Force (Tier II) vs Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC