Sporting lift Clarendon KO crown

CLARENDON PARK, Clarendon -- Sporting Central Academy copped their fourth hold on the Clarendon Football Association (CFA) Knockout trophy after nipping fellow Premier League contenders Humble Lion 1-0 in the final at Brancourt on Sunday.

Andre Allen got the game's lone goal in the 61st minute, as Sporting Central joined Humble Lion as the two winningest teams in the competition with four titles each.

The victory was also sweet revenge for Sporting who pocketed $30,000 in prize money, after they were beaten in last year's final by Humble Lion.

And with both finalists already assured of a place in the Jamaica Football Federation/Flow All-Island Championship, CFA will now have the luxury of sending third-place finishers Monymusk FC as a third representative from the parish.

Sunday's encounter was expected to be a grand affair, as it is the first time in many years that two Premier League teams were meeting in the KO decider and it did live up to expectations.

However, it was Sporting Central, who as expected used mostly Under-21 players for the game, who were first out of the blocks and could have taken a 2-0 lead after 15 minutes.

In the 11th minute, Kadian Wynter appeared to have beaten Shawn Sawyers with a rasping left-footed volley from inside the box, but a defender's boot denied him.

Four minutes later, Romane Barnes drilled in a low free-kick from the right for Dwayne Campbell to connect well with a one-time shot that just missed the left upright.

But, even though the young Sporting unit had the upper hand as the half grew older, the Humble Lion team who used the game to feel out their new players also had their moments and should have taken a 1-0 lead into the break.

In the 35th minute, Roberto Fletcher latched onto a lofted ball over the top ahead of Sporting's goalie Tristan Huntley, but his cross was skied by the onrushing Phillip Peddie who had an empty goal before him.

While the wet surface caused little or no problem for the outfield players, it sure did for the goalkeepers, moreso Sawyers.

Six minutes into the second-stanza, the former Portmore United player allowed Allen's speculative shot from about 25 yards out to slip under his body and rolled across the line, as he leaned forward to scoop up the wet ball.

Winning coach, Nigel Stewart praised his young team for a job well done. "This is a younger team than we normally use... they brought us here and we decided we were going to stick with them", he said.

Humble Lion's Christopher Bender thought some of the new signings never rose to the occasion.

"I don't think most of them did as well as I thought they could do (based) on the training that I saw...," he noted.

Michael Ricketts, CFA's president said, despite "the (financial) constraints, I think the competition committee in particular did an excellent job of organising this competition".

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