Gayle, second on 15 points, went into the game confident that they could make light work of 10th-place Santana, which have five points. That belief was strengthened when Barrington Gardener got on to the end of a pass through the middle and scored in the fourth minute by beating the Santana custodian with a fierce shot.

However, the Santana team was not daunted by this early goal and became more settled, orchestrating a few attacks of their own. On one such occasion, Dwight Young skillfully disposed of two opponents and scored in the eighth minute to put Santana on even terms in front of their faithful fans.

Wild celebration

Santana continued to demonstrate that they had other ideas and took the lead with a well-taken goal by Andrew Jones, who smashed the ball into the roof of the net in the 35th minute and once again their fans were sent into wild celebration.

The half ended with no change to the score.

On the resumption, both teams continued to attack each other's goal relentlessly, but they were guilty of spilling easy chances. This result left Gayle, who were losing their first game, in a precarious situation as they will have to wait until the playing of the ninth-round games to see if they can advance to the mid-season final.

Mid-season final

In the meeting of the 'two Rivers', leaders Milk River wore down Rock River with a 2-0 beating, through a double strike from top marksman Jaime Fothergill. The win placed Milk River on 18 points.

Wood Hall improved their chances with a workman-like 3-2 victory over bottom-place Chateau. Two goals from Orane Harris and one from Lashawn Cooke ensured victory for Wood Hall, which advanced to 15 points. Calvin Palachi and Omar White were the scorers for Chateau, who were losing their fifth game.

Wood Hall and Gayle will play each other in the final round of games before the mid-season final, thus setting up an important day of competition.