NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Dwight Jor­dan fired in a hat-trick as de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Mal­abar Se­mi Pro kick off the de­fence of its RBC West Penn Is­land­wide Com­mu­ni­ty Youth Cham­pi­ons Foot­ball Tour­na­ment ti­tle with a 3-0 win over Trinci­ty Na­tion­als in their Far East Di­vi­sion at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, Tu­na­puna on Sun­day.

In the oth­er match in the Far East Di­vi­sion, Nyrek Thorn­hill al­so scored a hat trick to lead Gin­ga FC to an em­phat­ic 6-1 de­mo­li­tion of Ari­ma Creek.

Kyle Wal­dron added a pair of goals and An­tho­ny Samuel, the oth­er for win­ners Gin­ga FC while Carl Hamil­ton scored a con­so­la­tion item for Ari­ma Creek from the penal­ty spot.

How­ev­er, in the South West Di­vi­sion, last year's tour­na­ment run­ner-up De­porti­vo Ma­haica suf­fered a 4-1 loss to La Brea with the lat­ter get­ting a goal each from Xar­i­on France, Tyrese Mon­tano, Ta­fari Gob­in, and Thaj Nep­tune to can­cel out Ja­mal Seep­er­sad's goal on Sat­ur­day when the sea­son kicked off at the Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex, Point Fortin un­der the pa­tron­age of her Wor­ship, May­or Saleema Thomas.

In Sat­ur­day's open­er, Gesi­ah Bish­op, and Jah­mali Cob­ham were both on tar­get to earn Point Ligoure Nko­mo a 2-1 win against Guapo Up­ris­ing Youths, with Adam Pierre scor­ing for the lat­ter.

But the star of the open­ing round was with­out a doubt, Je­mon Gul­ston of Diego Mar­tin af­ter he fired in five goals in his team's 9-0 trash­ing of Betis Acad­e­my T&T in the West Di­vi­sion while Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin blanked St James Spar­tans 2-0 in the oth­er di­vi­sion­al en­counter.

This year's edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion fea­tures 32 clubs par­tic­i­pat­ing in eight groups of four teams each in Trinidad at the end of which the top two teams in each pool will ad­vance to the main draw knock­out com­pe­ti­tion.

The over­all tour­na­ment win­ners will col­lect $15,000, while the run­ner-up gets $10,000, the third-place fin­ish­er $5,000, fourth $3,000, and the teams plac­ing fifth to eighth, $1,000 each.

Round One Di­vi­sion­al Group re­sults:

West Di­vi­sion:

Diego Mar­tin 9 (Je­mon Gul­ston 5, Nathan Carr 2, Amin Lug­man, Maleek Mungroo) vs Betis Acad­e­my TT 0

Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin 2 (Mikel Tou­s­saint, An­dell Fraz­er) vs St James Spar­tans 0

PoS Di­vi­sion:

T&T Mae­stros 3 (Kryzx­eo Hold­er 3) vs PoS South RSSR 0

Near East Di­vi­sion:

San­ta Cruz F.A 3 (Eli­jah Floyd 2, Ja­mal Per­ouse-Williams) vs Low­er San­ta Cruz 1 (Malique An­der­son)

Mara­cas Unit­ed FC 1 (Daniel Best pen) vs Gate­way Ath­let­ics 0

Far East Di­vi­sion:

Mal­abar Se­mi Pro 3 (Dwight Jor­dan 3) vs Trinci­ty Na­tion­als 0

Gin­ga FC 6 (Nyrek Thorn­hill 3, Kyle Wal­dron 2, An­tho­ny Samuel) vs Ari­ma Creek 1 (Carl Hamil­ton)

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion:

Re­al Cen­tral 2 (Isi­ah Jones 2) vs Dass Trace Unit­ed 1 (Raul Per­reira)

Crown Trace FC 0 vs Evo­lu­tion FC 0

South Cen­tral Di­vi­sion:

Gas­par­il­lo Youths 6 (Keron Bur­nett 3, Nicholas Kiston, Dar­i­on Mo­han, Dar­ren Moore) vs Broad­way At­tack­ers 2 (Rayshawn Crichlow, Alexan­der Go­sine)

Tabaquite Unit­ed 2 (De­nil­son Do­gan, Tyrese Josef) vs Latchoo Trace Youths 1 (Je­me­my Lara)

South East Di­vi­sion:

Moru­ga Mas­call F.A 8 (Tevin Turn­er 3, Tyrique Lu­cas 2, Le Bron Williams 2, Jose Steel­ings) vs Biche Seeds of Great­ness 3 (Or­lan­do Phillip, Jassef Lovelace, Tyrese Strak­er o.g)

Maguaya Unit­ed 1 (Kyrise Fron­tin) vs East­ern Coun­ties F.A 1 (Marc Re­ece-Mar­cano)

South West Di­vi­sion:

La Brea La Brea 4 (Xar­i­on France, Tyrese Mon­tano, Ta­fari Gob­in, Thaj Nep­tune) vs De­porti­vo Ma­haica 1 (Ja­mal Seep­er­sad)

Point Liguore Nko­mo 2 (Gesi­ah Bish­op, Jah­mali Cob­ham) vs Guapo Up­ris­ing Youths 1 (Adam Pierre)