BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - CONAREE FC and S.L. Hosford’s St. Paul’s are the two teams that will compete for the title of 2013 Champions of the SKNFA Digicel Premier League in the best-of-three Finals at the Silver Jubilee Stadium, starting on Saturday (Aug. 17).
This fixture was made possible last evening (Aug. 14) during a double header in which the already eliminated Rams Village Superstars defeated Hobson Enterprise Garden Hotspurs and Conaree FC losing 1-nil to St. Paul’s.
Although being defeated by St. Paul’s, which stand at the top of the table with seven points, Conaree have progressed to the Finals with four and could have only been eliminated if Hotspurs had won their match against Village, which would have taken them to five points.
Two second half goals by Village saw the team overcoming Spurs’ one goal first half lead and dent their chance of further advancement in the tournament.
Spurs, from the outset, went in search of goals in order to give themselves an opportunity to qualify for the Finals and found luck when a defensive error led to Timothy Smithen pouncing on a loose ball before smartly finishing in the 37th minute to give his team a lead going into the break.
Starting the second half, Village was determined to be spoilers in Spurs’ effort. Village’s opening goal came about in scrappy fashion when Spurs failed to clear a corner by Village and Kimarie Rogers tapped the ball passed the goalkeeper to level the score.
As time progressed in the game, visible signs of desperation were obvious in Spurs’ play and they were dealt a blow when a poor clearance from their goalkeeper left him out of goal and, Ajar Jeffers, from 35 yards out carefully chipped the ball into the back of the net in the 75th minute.
Though they continued to threaten Village’s goal, Spurs failed to grab a second.
The result meant that Spurs finished in fourth place on two points and out of the Finals.
With qualification already secured both St. Paul’s and Conaree rested a number of their key players from their starting line up, as both teams had one eye on this weekend’s first Final game.
The teams however sought to get a psychological edge before the real battle begins.
The game saw few chances being created with the bulk falling to St. Paul’s team.
As the game seemed to be heading for a stalemate, a 25-yard shot by Rasheed Hodge in the 65th minute sent St. Paul’s fans into rapture, which included Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil .L. Douglas who applauded the young man’s effort.
The best-of-three Finals are set for August 17, 21 and 24 starting at 8:00 pm each night.
