A lone strike from Isa­iah Ja­cob in the 49th minute steered Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, to a 1-0 vic­to­ry over archri­vals St Bene­dict’s Col­lege in a key clash in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 23) at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la.

The re­sult con­fined St Bene­dict’s to their sec­ond loss of the sea­son af­ter go­ing with­out a loss in the 2024 sea­son.

The two big teams in the South Zone re­newed their ri­val­ry, and though St Bene­dict’s was with­out their in­stru­men­tal strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia, they looked the bet­ter team in the ear­ly mo­ments of the game.

From a build-up that went from right to left, with Cam’Ron Burke in the cen­tre of the park quick­ly re­leas­ing to the un­marked Josi­ah Ochoa, saw a glimpse of the open­ing goal, but Ochoa failed to use the time avail­able to him, and when he got his shot off, it took a de­flec­tion off the de­fend­er be­fore bounc­ing be­hind the goal to safe­ty in the 14th minute.

It was one of sev­er­al chances cre­at­ed in the half that sep­a­rat­ed the La Ro­main Li­ons from Pre­sen­ta­tion ear­ly.

Pre­sen­ta­tion, which lost coach Shawn Coop­er to a Safe­guard­ing sus­pen­sion ear­li­er in the year, had a slow build-up from mid­way in­to the half with some pos­ses­sion but any­time they en­tered their op­po­nent’s de­fen­sive third, they found it dif­fi­cult against the St Bene­dict’s wall.

St Bene­dict’s were un­lucky not to get the open­er again in the 39th minute. Ochoa, who ter­rorised the ‘Pres’ de­fence all evening, tried a cheeky flick to Burke in­side the "Pres" penal­ty area, but the ball de­flect­ed off a de­fend­er and bounced invit­ing­ly for him to shoot at goal. How­ev­er, he failed to con­trol his shot as it sailed high over the cross­bar.

Three min­utes be­fore the half, over­lap­ping de­fend­er Ruben Phillip sent a lift­ed ball from the left side to the on­rush­ing Burke on the right, to take it on the chest, be­fore his thump­ing shot went just wide of the goal in the 42nd minute.

St Bene­dict’s con­tin­ued their re­lent­less at­tacks on the Pres goal area, and had it not been for the bril­liance of goal­keep­er Marce­lo Phillip to keep out a spank­ing shot from Ochoa, the Li­ons of Ro­main would have head­ed in­to the dress­ing room with a 1-0 lead at the half­time in­ter­val.

In­stead, it was the Pre­sen­ta­tion unit who snatched the open­er when the teams re­turned. Pre­sen­ta­tion, in fact, looked like a dif­fer­ent team, and shocked their St Bene­dict’s coun­ter­parts with on­ly their first at­tack of the half. This time, Joshua Bernard stormed from the de­fence and thread­ed the ball to Ja­cob to calm­ly slot the ball be­yond the on­rush­ing Thane De­venish in the 49th minute for the 1-0 lead.

The 2024 Na­tion­al In­ter­Col cham­pi­ons were un­daunt­ed by the Pre­sen­ta­tion change in ap­proach, though, and con­tin­ued their re­lent­less at­tack on their op­po­nent's goal. And they may feel un­lucky not to have got­ten the equalis­er when Adam Pierre picked out Ochoa with a long ball from right to left, and Ochoa con­nect­ed with a one-time shot, which crashed against the up­right and out, with the goal­keep­er beat­en in the 87th minute.

Both teams at­tacked each oth­er in the re­main­ing mo­ments, but Pres pre­vailed in the end on the lone goal.

Tues­day's re­sults

Pre­sen­ta­tion San­do 1 (Isa­iah Ja­cob 49th) vs St Bene­dict's Col­lege 0

Fa­ti­ma 3 (Josi­ah Fer­nan­des, Phillip Nel­son, Je­re­mai Nan­ton) vs Trin­i­ty Mo­ka 2 (Kevez Quin­tero, Kelvin Her­nan­des)

St Au­gus­tine 2 vs Cara­pichaima 1

QRC 3 (Ab­dul John 33rd, Jor­dan Grant 52nd, 61st) vs St An­tho­ny’s 1 (Mod­e­cai Forde 6th)

Na­pari­ma 3 (Riquelme Phillips 28th, 61st, Jabari Ro­driguez) vs Mal­ick 0

San Juan North 4 vs Trin­i­ty East 2 (Eli­jah Di­az, own goal)

St Mary’s 5 (Finn De Fre­itas 2, Madeem Grant, Er­an Mc Leod, Deron Black­man) vs Scar­bor­ough 0

Ari­ma North 3 (Zion Metiviere, Mick­el John, Chris­t­ian Gomez) vs Sig­nal Hill 1

SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion Stand­ings

Cur­rent stand­ings

Pos*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1. Na­pari­ma*4*4*0*0*15*1*14*12

2. St Mary 's*4*3*1*0*17*4*13*10

3. Pres San F’do*3*3*0*0*8*1*7*9

4. Fa­ti­ma*3*3*0*0*9*4*5*9

5. St Au­gus­tine*4*2*2*0*6*4*2*8

6. QRC*4*2*1*1*7*6*1*7

7. Sig­nal Hill*2*1*0*1*8*4*4*3

8. St Bene­dict’s*3*1*0*2*6*5*1*3

9. Trin­i­ty Mo­ka*4*1*0*3*7*13*-6*3

10. Ari­ma North*4*1*2*1*8*8*0*5

11. San Juan North*3*1*1*1*6*7*-1*4

12. Scar­bor­ough*4*0*2*2*5*13*-8*2

13. Mal­ick*3*0*1*2*3*7*-4*1

14. St An­tho­ny’s*1*0*0*1*1*3*-2*0

15. Cara­pichaima East*4*0*0*4*4*12*-8*0

16. Trin­i­ty East*3*0*0*3*2*14*-12*0