San Juan North Sec­ondary ad­vanced to the East Zone Co­ca-Co­la In­ter­col fi­nal on Tues­day from the penal­ty spot, 7-6, over Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion cam­paign­ers Ari­ma North at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

They will now meet Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, an­oth­er Pre­mier Di­vi­sion team that pre­vailed over St Au­gus­tine 3-0 in the ear­li­er match of a dou­ble­head­er. The Arou­ca lads got goals from Khaleem Prince, Je­re­mi­ah Frank-Williams and Ja­heim Faustin to clear the way for a show­down for the ti­tle against San Juan North next Wednes­day at the same venue from 3.30 pm.

In To­ba­go, Sig­nal Hill up­set Spey­side High 2-1 to set up a fi­nal con­test with Ma­son Hall, which de­feat­ed Bish­ops High School.

Ari­ma North, un­beat­en through­out their cam­paign to date, was hop­ing for an up­set against one of the gi­ants of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), and un­der coach Lyn­don An­drews, they made a brave start with an at­tempt to play open foot­ball.    

How­ev­er, San Juan flexed its mus­cles with the open­er in the 12th minute, cour­tesy of a quick­ly tak­en free-kick in the cen­tre of the Ari­ma half. Skil­ful San Juan mid­field­er Lin­dell Sween caught Ari­ma goalie Isa­iah Di­az nap­ping with a thun­der­ous dri­ve from some 25 yards out that bounced awk­ward­ly in front of him be­fore fly­ing in­to the back of the net.

The goal ap­peared to have been the start of ear­ly San Juan's dom­i­nance, de­spite Ari­ma's bat­tling ef­fort. Still, with Ari­ma mid­field­er Je­maul Ash­ing at­tempt­ing to spur his team on, Sween near­ly pushed his team fur­ther ahead from an­oth­er long-range shot that can­noned off the cross­bar be­fore bounc­ing to safe­ty in the 28th minute.

Lar­ry Noel, the scor­er of more than a dozen of the San Juan North's goals this sea­son, was kept at bay for most of the half un­til Sween re­leased him in­to the Ari­ma dan­ger area but he could not find his goal-scor­ing touch, fir­ing the ball just wide of the opened goal in the 39th minute.

The teams went to the half-time in­ter­val with Pre­mier Di­vi­sion pow­er­house San Juan lead­ing by a soli­tary item and up­on the re­sump­tion, Ari­ma North re­ceived re­newed en­er­gy that led to the equalis­er in the 55th minute.

Ash­ing in the cen­tre of the park, picked out Malachi Nor­eiga on the right side, who then de­liv­ered per­fect­ly for the un­marked Ri­car­do Jones to turn the ball in­to the net for a 1-1 score­line.  

San Juan, ap­pear­ing to have lost the sting which saw them qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nal of the Tiger Tanks Pre­mier Di­vi­sion play-off last month, re­stored their ad­van­tage cour­tesy of a build-up be­tween Sween and Kedell Jones, that even­tu­al­ly land­ed at the feet of an un­marked Noel in the Ari­ma area. But this time, Noel took his time and placed the ball be­yond the ad­vanc­ing Di­az in­to the Ari­ma goal for a 2-1 mar­gin in the 71st minute.

How­ev­er, it did not spell the end for the "Di­al Dy­namos", as the Ari­ma team is called. A through-ball aimed Ash­ing, was cleared by de­fend­er Joshua Lewis, but on­ly as far as sub­sti­tute Devin Seales, who com­posed him­self and slot­ted the ball in­to an emp­ty net in the 77th minute for a 2-2 tie.

The match was then set­tled from the penal­ty spot where both teams were tied at 5-5 af­ter the first five kicks, be­fore Ari­ma's Nicholas Tor­res scuffed his shot in sud­den-death, to en­able Kent Guy to score the win­ner.

In the sis­ter isle, mean­while, Sig­nal Hill and Ma­son Hall will con­test the fi­nal af­ter re­spec­tive vic­to­ries. Pre­mier Di­vi­sion con­tender Spey­side was edged 2-1 by Sig­nal Hill, while Ma­son Hall and Bish­op's High got dou­ble strikes from Rick­el­di Williams and Aaron James, re­spec­tive­ly, in a 2-2 tie be­fore Ma­son Hall pre­vailed 4-3 from the penal­ty spots.

In the South Zone on Wednes­day, Tiger Tanks Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cham­pi­on St Bene­dict's Col­lege will go af­ter their sec­ond ti­tle this af­ter­noon when they take on Moru­ga in the first match of a dou­ble­head­er at 1.30 pm at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va. In the oth­er match from 3.30 pm, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, Tiger Tanks Cup win­ner at the be­gin­ning of the sea­son, will come up against Na­pari­ma Col­lege. 

Re­sults

East Zone

Trin­i­ty Col­lege East 3 (Khaleem Prince 22nd, Je­re­mi­ah Frank-Williams 39th, Ja­heim Faustin 69th) vs St Au­gus­tine 0

San Juan North 2 (Lin­dell Sween 12th, Lar­ry Noel 71st) vs Ari­ma North (Ri­car­do Jones 55th, Devin Seales 77th). San Juan won 7-6 on penal­ties.

To­ba­go Zone

Sig­nal Hill Sec 2 (D'Reem Tay­lor, Khyl­lon Des Vi­gnes) vs Spey­side High 1 (Ja­heim Trimm 25th)

Bish­op's High 2 (Aaron James 2) vs Ma­son Hall Sec 2 (Rick­el­di Williams 2). Ma­son Hall won 4-3 on penal­ties.