Fa­ti­ma Col­lege sealed the run­ner-up spot in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) cour­tesy of a com­fort­able 4-1 tri­umph over Mal­ick Sec­ondary School in their fi­nal match at their home ground on Mu­cu­rapo Road, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day. 

And they can an­tic­i­pate a re­peat of the crown pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the SS­FL over the use of star strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia by St. Bene­dict's Col­lege, who com­plet­ed the sea­son on de­feat in their 15 match­es. It is al­leged that Gar­cia had been out of the school sys­tem for over a year and was reg­is­tered late to par­tic­i­pate in the SS­FL sea­son, which kicked off on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2024. 

Gar­cia, nick­named 'Zoom Zoom', net­ted his team's lone goal in a 1-0 tri­umph over St Mary's Col­lege on Ser­pen­tine Road, Port-of-Spain, to com­plete an un­blem­ished record this sea­son, one that com­prised two drawn ac­counts and 13 wins. 

Gar­cia scored in most of the nine match­es he played and is well in con­tention for the League's Gold­en Boots Award with 17 goals. His item took his team to 41 points and was well out of reach of Fa­ti­ma and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­leges (35 points) by six points. 

Gar­cia used his speed to meet a neat­ly thread­ed pass in­side of the St. Mary's penal­ty area in the 32nd minute and calm­ly hit the ball firm­ly past the ad­vanc­ing Josi­ah Su­perville in the CIC goal for the 1-0 win. Be­fore that, the home team fought dogged­ly and could have got­ten the open­er in the 18th minute, but Eli­jah Wong's so­lo ef­fort from halfway up the pitch to the top of Bene­dict's goal area could not find the bot­tom cor­ner of the goal when he un­leashed his shot. 

Gar­cia's goal en­sured his team a 1-0 ad­van­tage at the break, and they al­most pushed their lead fur­ther in the 49th minute. Cam'Ron Burke near­ly caught the CIC goalie nap­ping with a loop­ing shot for long range, but the shot was some­how pushed over to pre­serve the score­line.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege Col­lege, last year's Co­ca-Co­la In­ter­Col win­ner, stormed from a goal down to edge south­ern­er ri­val Na­pari­ma Col­lege 2-1. Se­bas­t­ian James hand­ed Na­pari­ma the ad­van­tage ear­ly, but the pro­lif­ic Vaughn Cla­ment knot­ted up the scores with a 48th-minute item be­fore Levi Jones sealed the win in the 90th minute to en­sure they got the three points that sent them to 35 points but in the third po­si­tion on goal dif­fer­ence.

RE­SULTS

Ari­ma North- 2 vs Spey­side- 3

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege- 4 (David Hospedales, Ca­den Tre­strail, Liam God­ding, Josi­ah Gob­in) vs Mal­ick Sec- 1 (Ronald­in­ho Richards)

Mir­a­cle Min­istries- 0 vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East- 2

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege- 2 (Vaughn Clement, Levi Jones) vs Na­pari­ma Col­lege- 1 (Se­bas­t­ian James)

San Juan North- 4 vs St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege-3 (Jean-Marc Thomas, Mod­e­cai Forde, Ron­dell Hare­wood)

Sig­nal Hill Sec- 2 vs East Mu­cu­rapo- 0

St Au­gus­tine- 2 vs QRC- 2

St Mary’s Col­lege-0 vs St Bene­dict’s Col­lege- 1 (Der­rel Gar­cia)

Lat­est SS­FL Boys Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings

Pld*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

1*St Bene­dict’s*15*13*2*0*36*7*41

2*Fa­ti­ma*15*11*2*2*46*14*35

3*Pre­sen­ta­tion*15*11*2*2*33*10*35

4*St An­tho­ny’s*14*9*0*5*33*19*27

5*Ari­ma North*14*6*6*2*24*11*24

6*Na­pari­ma*15*6*4*5*26*19*22

7*QRC*15*6*3*6*22*21*21

8*Mal­ick*15*6*2*7*30*32*20

9*San Juan North*15*6*1*8*24*28*19

10*St Mary’s*15*5*1*9*17*29*16

11*St Au­gus­tine*15*4*3*8*11*32*15

12*Sig­nal Hill*12*4*3*5*20*22*13

13*Trin­i­ty East*15*4*1*10*19*29*13

14*Spey­side*13*3*3*7*18*28*12

15*East Mu­cu­rapo*14*3*0*11*10*25*9

16*Mir­a­cle Min­istries*15*2*1*12*8*51*7