Goal­keep­er Alex­ia Dol­land was the toast of her St Joseph’s Con­vent (Port-of-Spain) team­mates af­ter she saved from Gio­van­na Sher­wood’s penal­ty to se­cure a 5-3 penal­ty-kicks win over pre-match favourites Pleas­antville Sec­ondary af­ter a 1-1 draw in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Na­tion­al Girls’ Co­ca-Co­la In­ter­col fi­nal at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va on Thurs­day.

In a tense penal­ty-kick shootout, St. Joseph’s Con­vent, coached by for­mer na­tion­al women’s team cap­tain Tasha St. Louis, con­vert­ed all five of their at­tempts, with Rori Git­tens, Ja­da Wil­son, Kait­lyn Dar­went, Mikaela Year­wood, and sub­sti­tute Scar­lette Cole all scor­ing from the spot, while Pleas­antville scored via Na­talia Go­sine, cap­tain Taye-Ann Wylie, and stand­out play­er Niki­ta Go­sine, with Dol­land div­ing low to her right to de­ny Sher­wood’s tame ef­fort and hand the Bri­an Lon­don-coached Na­tion­al Girls SS­FL Big-Five’ and South Zone dou­ble-crown cham­pi­ons their first loss of the sea­son.

Ear­li­er on, St Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS) stunned Pleas­antville Sec­ondary with Bethany Phillip fir­ing home from close range in the 12th minute af­ter goal­keep­er Janike Ra­moutar could on­ly par­ry a rasp­ing right-foot­ed shot from Git­tens.

How­ev­er, that lead was short-lived as Niki­ta Go­sine brought her team lev­el when she took on five St Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS) de­fend­ers be­fore cut­ting on­to her favoured right foot to fire a low ef­fort past Dol­land in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner of the goal.

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary al­most went ahead in the 32nd through Niki­ta Go­sine’s sis­ter, Na­talia Go­sine, but Dol­land was equal to her goal­ward free kick to tip it over the bar.

Two min­utes in­to time added on at the end of the first half, Em­ma Nieves wast­ed a glar­ing chance to give St Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS) the lead when she col­lect­ed a right-sided pass from Dar­went in­side the six-yard box, but with goal­keep­er Ra­moutar al­ready on the ground, she mis­cued her at­tempt high and wide of the tar­get to the dis­may of her team­mates to let Pleas­antville off the hook.

On the re­sump­tion, Pleas­antville Sec­ondary al­so missed a clear-cut chance to take the lead for the first time in the con­test, with team­mates Khairiyah For­tune and Wylie get­ting in each oth­er’s way from in­side the 18-yard box af­ter be­ing picked out by a left-sided cen­tre from Niki­ta Go­sine.

The south­ern­ers con­tin­ued to throw every­thing at St. Joseph’s Con­vent, with an­oth­er free kick from Na­talia Go­sine in the 50th minute cre­at­ing a few ner­vous mo­ments for Dol­land and her team­mates be­fore it was even­tu­al­ly cleared away for a cor­ner kick.

An­oth­er chance went beg­ging for Pleas­antville in the 70th minute with Wylie drag­ging a right-foot­ed ef­fort wide off the right up­right.

In the end, St. Joseph’s Con­vent, mar­shalled in de­fence by Mikaela Year­wood, de­fend­ed dogged­ly to car­ry the match in the dread-dead penal­ty-kick shootout, where Dol­land re­peat­ed her hero­ics from the North Zone fi­nals with a 4-3 penal­ty-kick win over Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary af­ter their 1-1 draw on No­vem­ber 21.

With the win, St. Joseph’s Con­vent ex­act­ed re­venge on Pleas­antville for their 6-0 loss in the Na­tion­al Girls Un­der-15 Trinidad fi­nal on No­vem­ber 24.

It was al­so the third ti­tle of the sea­son for the St. Joseph’s Con­vent team af­ter they swept both the North Girls Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion and In­ter­col crowns.

Speak­ing af­ter the win, Cole, who scored the de­ci­sive penal­ty for St Joseph’s Con­vent, said she was elat­ed to be back for the fi­nal and to score the de­cid­ing spot-kick.

St. Louis added, “It’s a very ex­cit­ed and over­whelm­ing feel­ing. The girls worked re­al­ly hard for each oth­er dur­ing the game, and they re­al­ly want­ed it as well.

The for­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al al­so praised the at­ti­tude of her play­ers, say­ing, “Our con­fi­dence was high com­ing in­to the match, and I told them they need­ed to car­ry it on­to the field and play that way, and they did just that.

In the semi­fi­nals, St. Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS) eked out a 1-0 win over East In­ter­col win­ners, San Juan North Sec­ondary, cour­tesy of a sec­ond-half strike from Dar­went, while Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, 3-0 win­ners over Five Rivers Sec­ondary, “Big Five,” brushed aside Mir­a­cle Min­istries Pen­te­costal High School 5-1 with Niki­ta Go­sine scor­ing a hat trick and For­tune and Na­talia Go­sine, the oth­ers to can­cel out Syd­ney Pol­lard’s lone item.