Mid­field­er Niki­ta Go­sine of Pleas­antville Sec­ondary School re­peat­ed as the 2025 Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League’s (SS­FL) Girls’ ‘Play­er of the Year’ award win­ner, while Na­pari­ma Col­lege goal­keep­er Mikhail Clement cre­at­ed his­to­ry by be­com­ing the first play­er in his po­si­tion to cop the SS­FL ‘Boy’s Play­er of the Year’ award for the 2025 sea­son.

This was an­nounced when the SS­FL held its awards and dis­tri­b­u­tion func­tion at the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce on Thurs­day.

The 16-year-old Go­sine of Em­ba­cadere, La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, who re­cent­ly re­turned home from a ten-day tri­al with top-flight French Fem­i­nine Ligue I club RC Lens, was an over­whelm­ing favourite for the award ahead of fel­low ‘Top Five’ awardees, in­clu­sive of school­mate and goal­keep­er Akeila Mar­ryshow (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary).

Hac­k­eemar Goodridge (Five Rivers Sec­ondary), Jay­da Her­bert (Five Rivers Sec­ondary) and Kait­lyn Dar­waent (St Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS)).

Dur­ing the sea­son, Go­sine was once again the fo­cal point for the Bri­an Lon­don-coached Pleas­antville Sec­ondary at­tack as they dom­i­nat­ed the South Zone Girls Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion but had to share the Na­tion­al Girls’ ‘Big Five’ crown with Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary of To­ba­go af­ter the fi­nal was not played while they al­so cap­tured the Na­tion­al Girls Co­ca-Co­la and South Zone crowns.

An elat­ed Go­sine re­flect­ing on her top award said it was re­al­ly a great feel­ing to be named the league’s top play­er for yet an­oth­er sea­son.

Go­sine, who net­ted 35 goals dur­ing the sea­son, five less than in 2024, al­so praised the sup­port of her team­mates as well as coach­es and tech­ni­cal staff, say­ing, “They all worked hard through­out the sea­son, and de­spite the many chal­lenges com­ing our way, we didn’t let it stop us.”

“We con­tin­ued to push for­ward and fought to­wards every­thing that we want­ed to achieve, and in the end we did it.

How­ev­er, the sea­son for Go­sine did not ful­ly go ac­cord­ing to plan, as she ad­mit­ted her­self, and the Pleas­antville team want­ed to com­plete the sweep of ti­tles but was forced to share the Na­tion­al SS­FL Girls’ ‘Big Five’ crown with To­ba­go’s Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary af­ter the fi­nal was not played.

Go­sine al­so said she hopes that in the com­ing sea­son, the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion for the girls will come to fruition.

“I re­al­ly want­ed us to play Pre­mier­ship, as it would have giv­en us a bet­ter chal­lenge as a team be­cause in our zone (South) we don’t re­al­ly have that big a chal­lenge, and we tend to play against boys’ teams in prac­tice match­es so that we can keep our in­ten­si­ty.

The Po­lo Seco-born 17-year-old Clement beat out fel­low ‘Top Five’ awardees Adam Pierre (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege), Isa­iah Ja­cob (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege), Morde­cai Ford (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege) and Kyle James (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary) for the top award af­ter he helped his school to the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion League and Na­tion­al and South Zone In­ter-Col ti­tles un­der the guid­ance of coach An­gus Eve dur­ing the sea­son.

Dur­ing the 2025 sea­son, Clement on­ly missed one of his schools’ league and In­ter-Col match­es com­bined, dur­ing which time he kept 12 clean sheets (Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka, Mal­ick Sec­ondary, Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege and St Mary’s Col­lege) and In­ter-Col en­coun­ters ver­sus Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary and Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary.

Over­all, Clement on­ly con­ced­ed eight goals in the league while Na­pari­ma net­ted 42 times in their 15 match­es and was un­beat­able in his team’s con­quest in the In­ter-Col, South Zone and Na­tion­al play­offs com­bined.

A glee­ful Clement, speak­ing af­ter col­lect­ing his award, said it was a re­al­ly tremen­dous sea­son for his team and him­self.

He added, “I think my team and my coach An­gus Eve and goal­keep­er coach Rayshawn Mar re­al­ly did a great job in push­ing me through­out the league and kept me calm so I could lead the team to the tro­phies we won.”

Per­son­al­ly, Clement said, “I have many goals I want to chase and achieve and just make my par­ents proud. Me be­ing the first goal­keep­er to cop the award is re­al­ly breath­tak­ing, and this is all a step on my path to great­ness.”

Among the fea­ture speak­ers at the awards were Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlat, a for­mer prin­ci­pal of Na­pari­ma Col­lege; SS­FL pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les; and Sen­a­tor David Nakhid, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs.

SS­FL 2025 All Star teams

Boy’s Team

Goal­keep­ers

Mikhail Clement (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Thane De­venish (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege)

Necose Moore (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege)

De­fend­ers

Adam Pierre (Ari­ma North Sec­ondary)

Criston Gomez (Ari­ma North Sec­ondary)

An­to­nio Hills (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Se­bas­t­ian James (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Joshua Bernard (Prsen­ta­tion Col­lege/San Fer­nan­do)

Raevon Mar­shall (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Mid­field­ers

Josi­ah Ochoa (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege)

Jay­den Ca­pri­et­ta (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Morde­cai Ford (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege)

Finn De Fre­itas (St Mary’s Col­lege)

Ackim Dun­can Jr (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Amar Al­lie Bac­cas (Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary)

Seth Hadeed (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege)

Jabari Ro­driguez (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

For­wards

Isa­iah Ja­cob (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege)

Ja­sia Theophilus (Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege)

Kyle James (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Gio­van­ni Hospedales (St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary)

Jean-Marc Thomas (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege)

Phillip Nel­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege)

Top Five

Mikhail Clement (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Adam Pierre (Ari­ma North Sec­ondary)

Isa­iah Ja­cob (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege)

Morde­cai Ford (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege)

Kyle James (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Play­er of the Year

Mikhail Clement (Na­pari­ma Col­lege)

Gold­en Boot

Boys: Isa­iah Ja­cob (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege) - 22 goals

Girl’s Team

Goal­keep­ers

Ak­i­lah George (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Akeila Mar­ryshow (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Ken­isha Tay­lor (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

De­fend­ers

Aki­ra Charles (Five Rivers Sec­onbdary)

Mikalah Guer­rero (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Kait­lyn Dar­went (St Joseph’s Con­vent PoS)

Madi­son Camp­bell (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Alia Tou­s­saint (Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary)

J’Eleisha Alexan­der (Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary)

Mid­field­ers

Niki­ta Go­sine (Pleas­natville Sec­ondary)

Na­talia Go­sine (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Orielle Mar­tin (Bish­op’s Anstey East)

Zara Chase (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Shaquil­la Daniel (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Ruth Cabr­era (Tran­quil­li­ty Sec­ondary)

Makay­lah Rob­ley (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

For­wards

Hac­k­eemar Goodridge (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Jay­da Her­bert (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Kae­ley Mar­tin (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Ty’Kaiya Den­nis (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary)

Da­neelyah Sa­landy (St Joseph’s Con­vent PoS)

Syn­dey Pol­lard (St Joseph’s Con­vent PoS)

Gyasi Lewis (Bish­op’sa High School To­ba­go)

Top Five

Akeila Mar­ryshow (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Niki­ta Go­sine (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Hac­k­eemar Goodridge (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Jay­da Her­bert (Five Rivers Sec­ondary)

Kait­lyn Dar­waent (St Joseph’s Con­vent PoS)

Play­er of the Year

Niki­ta Go­sine (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary)

Gold­en Boot

Girls: Niki­ta Go­sine (Pleas­antville Sec­ondary) - 35 goals