SAN JUAN Senior COMPREHENSIVE have toppled defending champions St Augustine to clinch the Secondary Schools Football League’s East Zone title.
The boys from Bourg Mulatresse thrashed Arima 5-1 on Thursday to capture their first zonal crown since 1992.
The win, San Juan’s tenth in as many matches, essentially put them out of the reach of their nearest rivals—second place El Dorado (26 points)—as it gave the newly-crowned champs a four-point cushion (30 pts).
San Juan will now close off its league campaign with matches against El Dorado tomorrow and St Augustine on Thursday—teams they beat 3-1 and 6-1, respectively, in the first round of the competition.
Naparima wrapped up the South Zone title on Saturday. With second place Princes Town falling 2-1 at home to St Benedict’s on Thursday, and ‘Naps’ edging Fyzabad 1-0, a single point was all Naparima needed against Vessigny on Saturday to end the title chase, which is exactly what it got after drawing 0-0.
In the North, Central and Tobago Zones, the competition is still wide open. Presentation and Carapichaima are currently tied on 22 points atop the Central table, but ‘Pres’ (+5), after beating Tabaquite 5-1 on Saturday has a better goal difference than Carapichaima (+4) heading into the zone’s last round of matches tomorrow.
The title race should go down to the wire, however, as both teams will face opponents they have already beaten and are expected to defeat again.
It is therefore believed that the zonal champion will only be decided when the teams meet each other, in a match which was postponed from the first round.
Fatima, the North leaders (27 pts), could have made its job a lot easier with a win over St Anthony’s on Saturday, but instead lost 4-1 to the four-time InterCol winners.
It now hold a slender three-point lead over defending champs and neighbour school, Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive (24 pts), with just one match left to play.
If Mucurapo beats QRC tomorrow, Fatima will need to win and score plenty goals when it takes on Malick on Thursday, in case the title-winner has to be decided by goal difference.
With a number of matches still outstanding in Tobago, at this point, no one can be certain who will emerge on top.