Three hunt second straight win in D’Cup
MUNRO, St Elizabeth — A second straight win will be up for grabs today for three schools — Munro College, Manchester High and McGrath High — as the ISSA/Gatorade/Digicel daCosta Cup schoolboys’ football season continued after Saturday’s start in Montego Bay.
All three were winners on Saturday after the organisers broke with tradition and played 14 others games in addition to the official opener that saw defending champions Rusea’s High thrash Green Island High 10-0 at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.
Fourteen games are down to be contested today as the competition gets underway with a number of other teams joining the fray.
After getting by Balaclava 2-1 Saturday, Munro will host Newell High in Zone F and will take the lead over the idle St Elizabeth Technical if they avoid losing to Newell for the first time.
National Under-17 invitee Kaneil Harrison will lead the Munro attack as new coach Alrick Clarke seeks to extend his winning start in the daCosta Cup after a long time coaching in the Manning Cup.
Manchester High cruised to a 4-0 win over Mile Gully Saturday and will look for their third straight win over Knox College, who they beat 2-0 and 1-0 last season.
A win today for McGrath over Dinthill Technical would see them surpassing their entire points total of four last season and take them to the top of Zone J.
Saturday’s win avenged their two losses to Charlemont last year and they will go after a win against the former champions Dinthill for the first time in many seasons.
In Zone A, the Hopeton Gilchrist era will start at Cornwall College, but they face a tricky game at Spot Valley, the team that finished ahead of them last year for the second Inter-zone spot behind St James High.
In Zone B Maldon High will seek their first goal since the 2008 season when they host Frome Technical at the Maroon Town Community Centre.
Maldon failed to score a single goal last season after a good start the previous season and were thrown out for using ineligible players and the results were stricken from the records.
Officially Maldon’s last goal came October 13, 2008 when they beat Spot Valley 4-0.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Lennon High last season’s beaten finalists, got their quest for a first title off to a good start after they edged Thompson Town High 1-0 in a Zone H game.
Glenville Morgan’s second-half goal gave the Merrick Gordon coached team a winning start.
They, however, share the lead in the points tables with Clarendon College, who beat Claude McKay 3-0 and Edwin Allen who edged Porus 1-0.
Former champions Garvey Maceo had the second biggest win of the day, one behind champions Rusea’s High when they hammered Central High 9-0 in Zone I with Rushane Spence, Akeem Goulbourne and Ishmael Curry all scoring two each.
Another former champion Glenmuir High were also winners in Zone I beating fancied Denbigh 2-0.
Manchester High lead Zone G on goal difference ahead of Bellefield after blanking Mile Gully 4-0, while Bellefield were 2-0 winners over Holmwood Technical.