ST George’s College outbattled Camperdown 1-0 to move closer to pinning down a semi-final place in the 2013 ISSA/LIME Manning Cup football competition from Group K in the opening game of the evening’s double-header programme at Constant Spring yesterday.

While St George’s College narrowly won the battle of winners in the group, Calabar stopped Spanish Town 2-0 in the game of losers in the feature game with goals from Kevane Thompson and Luckas Cross.

St George’s College’s top Group K with six points, while Camperdown and Calabar are on three points with Spanish Town without a point. St George’s next game will be against Spanish Town at Spanish Town Prison Oval on Tuesday, November 12 at 3:00 pm with the best third-placed finisher Camperdown vs Calabar in the opening game at 1:00 pm.

Ashane Boothe was the man of the moment for St George’s, as he scored the only goal that sent St George’s on the shoulders of another Manning Cup semi-final in the eighth minute.

With victory a most crucial result for either team going forward, there were no half measures. And from the moment St George’s took the lead until the final whistle the game was electric and could have gone either way, with both teams showing grit and determination.

In the end it was St George’s College, the defending champions who prevailed but nothing must be taken away from Camperdown who fought gallantly and played very well without scoring.

The effort was summed up by their coach Christopher Bender: “We had a good win on Tuesday and hopefully we thought we would have carried through this one this afternoon. As is now evident we gave it everything that we’ve got but we just couldn’t score this time against an equally determined St George’s team this afternoon.”

At the final whistle coach Neville Bell of St George’s was more than relieved: “Thank God we got the victory, but Camperdown really played well. As I said in another interview were I the Camperdown coach I would have been very disappointed today because they really played well. Truth be told, they got a couple of chances, not really a whole lot of chances to score, but they had the run of the play.”