With the finish line in sight, Fatima College stumbled at the most inopportune time, to leave the race for the North Zone title in the BG T&T Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) wide open like the Queen's Park Savannah.
On their Mucurapo Road home ground, the season-long zonal leaders were humbled 4-1 by third-placed St Anthony's College, while neighbours, defending champions and close title rivals Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive, made hay against pointless Tranquillity, routing them 12-1. Atulla Guerra was the star, scoring half of the dozen.
That smashing win drew 'Compre' level on points with Fatima-24-with two games to go. But Fatima still hold the slimmest of advantages on goal difference-plus 33 to plus 32.
In the other North Zone game yesterday, an ill-tempered affair of four red cards, St Mary's College edged old rivals Queen's Royal College 1-0 at home on Serpentine Road.
The visitors finished the game with eight men.
At Mucurapo Road, however, there was not such a hard edge to the game. Surprisingly, the Fatima lads didn't play with the concerted energy of ones with so much at stake. The game was relatively tight, though, until Akil De Freitas intervened. The St Anthony's captain had been fairly anonymous until the 31st minute when his quick-footed work and square pass to Stefan St Louis resulted in a penalty when St Louis was pulled down. Uriah Bentick did not miss from the spot.
From then on, the penetrative De Freitas had more influence on the game. There was no one similarly inspired for the home side. And before half time, Fatima conceded a second goal, when a low, right side freekick found Lester Peltier, who got ahead of the lethargic defence to help the ball beyond goalkeeper Adrian Foncette.
Fatima, however, were given a lifeline before the interval when they received a penalty of their own. But this was only after one of the referee's assistants had pointed out that an infringement, originally given as a freekick, had actually been committed inside the St Anthony's 18-metre box. Marvin James duly converted for Fatima.
That 41st minute penalty goal should have been the tonic to shift the zonal leaders into third gear. But instead, in the second half, they remained in neutral as the "Tigers" wounded them twice further.
In the 52nd minute, the unmarked Peltier got his second when he finished clinically from the right side of the Fatima 18-metre box, following a pass from the centre. By the 80th, the Fatima players seemed resigned to defeat. So, De Freitas' conversion of a second St Anthony's penalty when another of his penetrating runs resulted in him being fouled, was more like the icing on the Tigers' cake rather than the decisive nail in the Fatima coffin.
Strangely, it was only thereafter that the home side began to show some of the urgency required much earlier. In the very last minute, Kevon Villaroel's shot struck the base of St Anthony's left upright.
But the echo of that failure would have been just more music in the ears of Fatima's Mucurapo neighbours.
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