ST JAMES, Jamaica — Deon Stern-Anglin, principal of Corinaldi Avenue Primary, says the school’s historic third-straight win in the St James Football Association/Victoria Mutual Foundation Under-13 competition was “ordained by God”.

Riomario Powell scored a second-half hat-trick to lead Corinaldi Avenue to a 3-0 win over Chetwood Primary at WesPow Park on Tuesday, becoming the first school in the 35-year history of the competition to win three titles in a row.

Corinaldi Avenue did not concede a goal throughout the entire season while scoring 34 times in nine games. They have been unbeaten over the last three years.

“I’m excited, as I told somebody, that it’s our winning season, and because it’s our winning season, it was ordained by God. So guess what? We are just going to be winners,” Stern-Anglin told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

“We believed in them. But then we had our drawbacks, and then to see them move from stage to stage, the process they went through, it made me feel proud to be their principal.”

Garvin Atkinson, the principal of Chetwood Primary, said despite not winning, they were proud of the efforts of the boys who survived back-to-back penalty shoot-outs to get to the final.

“The boys that did very, very well,” he said. “This is our centennial celebration and to reach a final is great. We did not win today, but we are winners. The boys did extremely well. I am proud of the coach, he [has] just [had] the team for a year now, and we have done extremely well. Congratulations to Corinaldi Avenue, they played well but congratulations to Chetwood, we also did well.”

In one of the best games of the season, Powell broke the tie when he scored from close range, early in the second half. He fired home his second after latching onto a loose ball in the 43rd minute, then scored his third about 12 yards out with an effort that came back off the left upright and into the goal.

In the first game of the double header, Howard Cooke Primary beat Barracks Road Primary 3-1 on penalties after they had played out a 0-0 stalemate in the third-place game.

— Paul A Reid