CATHERINE HALL, St James — St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) finally won the rural area schoolboy football double yesterday after they demolished a good Garvey Maceo High team 4-1 to win the ISSA/LIME daCosta Cup title at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.

Two goals in the game’s first seven minutes from the in-form Jovan James, one from Khesanio Hall and another in time added on from Keano Williams, gave STETHS their fourth hold on the daCosta Cup after they had won the Ben Francis Knockout earlier in the season.

Milton Green made it 2-1 at one stage for Garvey Maceo but the team finished the game with just nine players on the field, as Henrico Ricketts was shown a red card in the 39th minute for deliberately handling the ball in his own area and Tashane Campbell was stretchered off the field after they had already made all three changes.

STETHS became the eighth school to win the daCosta Cup/Ben Francis KO double and it was the 14th time the feat was being achieved.

The five goals that were scored represented the highest-scoring daCosta Cup final match since 2000, when Cornwall College beat Munro College 4-0 at Jarrett Park.

STETHS had come up short in the last two finals, losing in 2011 to Rusea’s High and last year to Glenmuir High, both by agonising 1-0 margins. However, yesterday’s flood of goals demonstrated the team’s bursting free from the frustrations of the last two years.

The moment was marred, however, for the second-straight week in an ISSA schoolboys’ final where a large crowd of fans celebrating prematurely invaded the field forcing a three-minute delay at the end of the game.

After the final whistle, STETHS coach Omar Wedderburn was over the moon. “As I have said all season, common horse can’t win derby. This year we came in with a championship mentality and that is what you saw today,” he said.

He told reporters afterwards that his team had come to play on the day and their quality was what took them home to victory.

A disappointed Alexander Morgan, one of the assistant coaches at Garvey Maceo, who took over the duties in the second half from Lenworth Gordon, told the Sunday Observer that “indiscipline on the part of the players” cost his team the game.

He admitted, however, that “some nervousness” at the start might have put them behind so early in the game.

After their free-scoring ways had apparently dried up during the latter stages of the competition, it was vintage STETHS with the combination of Hall and James that gave STETHS a lightning start, sending them 2-0 up after just seven minutes, before Garvey Maceo knew what had hit them.

But the losers woke up and promptly pulled a goal back after 11 minutes.

James, who picked up the scoring mantle after Hall’s torrid start, was snapped after 17-straight games, got two goals before the Garvey Maceo team even settled, beating goal-keeper Rajay Robinson twice in the first seven minutes.

Under tight marking inside the Garvey Maceo area, Hall flicked on a high pass with his head into the path of James, who cannoned it into the Garvey Maceo goal to give STETHS the lead after just three minutes.

Four minutes later the same combination found a way past the Garvey Maceo defence as Hall jumped with Robinson for a high ball, but the custodian dropped the ball for the alert James to power it into the goal as the defence failed to respond in time.

Green pulled one back for the Clarendon school in the 11th minute when he beat Enrique Rochester to pull his team to within a goal as the teams then settled into their rhythms.

Iishmael Currie shook off his marker in the 24th minute, but failed to draw Garvey Maceo level as his powerful shot from about 22 yards out rocked the cross bar on its way into touch.

A quick-thinking Campbell saved Garvey Maceo some more blushes in the 29th minute after Robinson left his line and was beaten by Hall to the ball, with the latter unleashing on goal.

The reprieve was only temporary as Ricketts tried to get the ball out of his area with his hands and referee Veralton Nembhard awarded the penalty, which Hall blasted home in the 40th minute, snapping his three-game goal drought.

Despite being a goal down, Garvey Maceo, led by Currie, gave as much as they got and Robinson, who grew in confidence, pulled off the save of the game when his quick reflexes saw him parry a shot from Hall with his right hand in the 66th minute.

Garvey Maceo went for broke making three substitutions early in the second half in an effort to get back into the game, but a series of injuries saw them with just eight players on the field at one time, and after Campbell had to be taken off, STETHS took over the game.

The long-striding Williams put the icing on the game in time added on when he powered his way through a tired and battered Garvey Maceo defence and shot powerfully past Robinson.