St Augustine book place in final: St Augustine 2 - 0 St Mary's
St Augustine Secondary go through to the Big Five Final after defeating St Mary's by 2-0 at the Larry Gomes Stadium.
'Gustine' will play the winner of Presentation vs Carapichaima being played on Friday at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium.
Goals by Ishmael Clement and Vernel Ramirez were enough to see the East Zone champions through to the finals, but it was really Theon James who deserved the man-of-the-match award as he had an instrumental role in both goals and created problems for the CIC backline for the entire match.
St Augustine were the stronger team over the 90 minutes, with CIC pressed back into their half for long periods of the match. 'Gustine' looked most threatening when the pace of winger Theon James got him behind the CIC defense on a couple of occasions.
'The Saints' did get forward at times but were restricted to speculative long ranged efforts and failed to truly threaten the St Augustine goal.
St. Augustine had two real scoring chance in an otherwise tight first half.
In the 18th minute CIC goalkeeper Raheem Belgrave did well to push wide a long range drive from Zavion Navarro.
The 40th minute saw 'Gustine' coming even closer to scoring but CIC skipper Kyle Beggs did well to head over a goal bound shot.
Despite St Augustine's more attacking play, the first half ended up 0-0.
'Gustine' would not have to wait long after the resumption of play as they were on the score sheet within two minutes.
St Augustine Coach Michael Grayson had started Theon James on the right wing, but in an astute tactical move decided to switch the nippy winger to the left after the break. The switch seemed to make all the difference as James got behind the defense and swung a dangerous ball into the six yard box. A goal mouth scramble ensued and Ishmael Clement pounced on the loose ball. Although his first attempt rebounded off of Belgrave, he made no mistake with his second attempt and slapped the ball past Belgrave and his defenders.
St Augustine had a chance to go 2 goals ahead when Jevaughn Vance won a penalty in the 67th minute after he was needlessly brought down by CIC keeper Belgrave.
Belgrave made amends for his mistake as he expertly saved the spot kick from Isaiah Mejias by diving low to his right.
'Gustine' continued to press for the insurance goal, and they got it in the 85th minute when Theon James again got down the left hand side and swung in yet another dangerous cross.
Ramirez got to the floated ball just before Belgrave and the ball hit his back and then trickled into the net to put the game out of reach of the North Zone champions.
The second goal meant that CIC had to throw caution to the wind, and they could have gone down by a couple more goals but Vance was denied late in the game by Belgrave on two occasions, and Ramirez struck the post as well deep in stoppage time.
St. Augustine now await the winner of Carapichaima and Presentation College San Fernando who play at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium on Friday.
Justin Henry
http://www.schoolsportcentre.com