BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE difficult road to the St. Kitts-Nevis Football Association’s Digicel Premier League finals was skillfully navigated by St. Peters F.C. last night (May 22) as they defeated Coury Gatorade Conaree 2-1 to keep their championship hopes alive.
St. Peters came into the must-win matchup aggressively after the opening whistle and was able to score on their opening salvo when the league’s regular season leading scorer Aiden Nurse led a sustained passing attack and caught Conaree off guard.
Conaree attempted to give an immediate answer, but was stopped short by ambitious goalkeeping from St. Peters that saw many balls being chased down before they could become a real threat. The attack for Conaree came back around just before the 25th minute and the Final Four first-timers opened up two clean scoring opportunities, but both shots were launched high above the crossbar and into the stands.
The near goals urged St. Peters to continue their attack and in minute 26 Dionis Stevens nabbed a rebound off the goal post to burn the back of the net and extend his side’s lead to 2-0.
With Conaree reeling from the early onslaught, St. Peters effectively controlled the pace of the game for the remainder of the first half, even when the ball was forced into their own zone.
Having yet to score a single goal in the Final Four, Conaree came into the final 45 minutes of play with a much greater sense of urgency.
In minute 65 the hard work finally paid off when they outpaced the St. Peters defenders in the area with agile footwork and scored their one and only goal in the playoffs series.
From that point forward, St. Peters played a safe defensive game in which they were rarely attacking hard and attempted to keep the ball in their possession as much as possible.
Conaree tried their best to force a fast paced match that would lead to errors by St. Peters, but the eventual winners maintained their composure and eased their way to six points in the playoff table.
The victory means that St. Peters will now be watching tonight’s (May 23) 7 p.m. match at Warner Park between TDC Newtown United and reigning league champion S. L. Horsford’s St. Pauls United very closely.
Newtown is currently undefeated in the Final Four and if they knock off St. Pauls tonight St. Peters will automatically advance to the finals. However, if St. Pauls is victorious there will be a three way tie between St. Peters, Newtown and St. Pauls in terms of games won.
The decider for who would play in the finals in such a circumstance would then be goal differential, which would likely result in Newtown and St. Pauls advancing to those two coveted spots.
