Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School will re­new their ri­val­ry with Na­pari­ma Col­lege af­ter both teams con­test the fi­nal of the Co­ca-Co­la Sec­ondary Schools Na­tion­al In­ter­Col Tour­na­ment on Wednes­day.

The To­bag­o­ni­ans de­feat­ed St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege 1-0 in their se­mi-fi­nal matchup at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo on Sat­ur­day.

Af­ter an ex­pect­ed cagey start by both teams, Kanye Glas­gow came close to the open­er when he ripped the Sig­nal Hill de­fence apart with a telling run past two de­fend­ers, but on­ly to drag his at­tempt ag­o­nis­ing­ly wide of the post in the 31st minute.

Sig­nal Hill, third in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) af­ter they were beat­en by Na­pari­ma Col­lege in their fi­nal game 2-1, tried to make amends with a fi­nal berth, but they squan­dered a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to go ahead in the en­counter. Nick­el Williams stormed in­to the St An­tho­ny’s goal area to cen­tre for an un­marked J’Meke Watkins to con­nect one time, but the goal­keep­er kept him out in the 38th minute.

Lat­er, the To­bag­o­ni­ans came even clos­er, to their sur­prise, from an­oth­er buildup down the right side. This time, Kyle James was hacked down in­side the area for the ref­er­ee to point to the penal­ty spot. How­ev­er, the pres­sure of the sit­u­a­tion took its toll on Cap­tain Ackim Dun­can, who was giv­en the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing the spot.

The usu­al­ly pro­lif­ic at­tack­er in­stead hit the ball high over the cross­bar, much to the sur­prise of his team­mates and fans in the 42nd minute.

His missed at­tempt sent the teams to the break with the score goal­less, and when they re­turned, the Tigers of St An­tho­ny’s thought they had bro­ken the dead­lock when sub­sti­tute Jean Marc Thomas took Mills’ left-side cross on his lap be­fore hit­ting the ball past Kaleb Romeo in the Sig­nal Hill goal in the 56th minute; how­ev­er, the ref­er­ee ruled hand­ball.

There was no stop­ping the To­bag­o­ni­ans in the 75th minute when Gibbes drib­bled in­to the Tigers’ penal­ty area, on­ly for the goal­keep­er to swipe the ball away from Gibbes’ feet but well in­to the path of Mills to steer the ball in­to an open net for the win­ner.

The Tigers tried des­per­ate­ly there­after for an equalis­er but could not get past the Sig­nal Hill de­fence and goal­keep­er in par­tic­u­lar.

Ear­li­er, na­tion­al play­er Niki­ta Go­sine scored a brace to lead Pleas­antville Sec­ondary to a sec­ond chance at the Co­ca-Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­Col crown in two years.

Last year, the south­ern­ers were beat­en by St Joseph Con­vent in the fi­nal, a re­sult that al­lowed them to set­tle on­ly for the Big Five ti­tle. Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, it was sweet re­venge for Go­sine and her team­mates, thrash­ing the same team (St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port of Spain) 5-0 in the na­tion­al semi­fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um to earn a berth in the fi­nal.

Go­sine re­turned from na­tion­al du­ty last week, where the coun­try’s se­nior women’s team ham­mered Bar­ba­dos 5-0 in a World Cup Qual­i­fi­er at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos, and was at her usu­al best, hand­ing her team the ad­van­tage af­ter just the sec­ond minute of play.

Go­sine, con­sid­ered one of the bet­ter fe­male play­ers with­in lo­cal shores, did not wait long for her brace. She found the net in the 13th minute to dou­ble her team’s ad­van­tage. Lat­er, Zara Chase, the scor­er of a hat-trick to get her team to the semis, made it 3-0 in the 58th minute.

St Joseph’s Con­vent, crowned na­tion­al cham­pi­ons af­ter a 5-3 penal­ty-kick vic­to­ry that fol­lowed a 1-1 score at the end of reg­u­la­tion time, looked a shad­ow of the team that pre­vailed the year be­fore. In­stead, the south­ern­ers added salt in their wounds with a fourth goal com­ing from Kae­ley Mar­tin in the 65th minute, be­fore Na­talia Go­sine round­ed off the scor­ing in the 78th minute with her goal to com­plete their en­trance in­to the fi­nal.

They will face Five Rivers Sec­ondary, which in the oth­er semi­fi­nals edged Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary 1-0 at the Train­ing Field of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Na­tion­al de­fend­er Hac­k­eema Goodridge was the scor­er.

Jil­ian Hug­gins, the Pleas­antville man­ag­er, said they are go­ing hard af­ter the na­tion­al In­ter­Col crown af­ter they let it slip last year. “This year, we’re hop­ing to do the dou­ble. The girls re­al­ly want it, so they’ve been work­ing re­al­ly hard in train­ing.”

SAT­UR­DAY’S RE­SULTS

Five Rivers 1 (Hac­k­eema Goodridge) vs Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary 0

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary 5 (Niki­ta Go­sine 2nd, 13th, Zara Chase 58th, Kae­ley Mar­tin 65th, Na­talia Go­sine 78th) vs St Joseph’s Con­vent- 0

St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege 0 vs Sig­nal Hill 1 (Siel Mills 75th)