MONTEGO BAY, St James — St James High and Old Harbour, the two best third-placed teams in the ISSA/LIME daCosta Cup football competition, will be hoping history will repeat itself and one of them or both could advance deep into the competition.

Last year when the best third-placed ‘wild card’ system was introduced by the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports’ Association, Frome Technical made it all the way to the semi-finals after advancing as a third-placed team.

Both St James High and Old Harbour qualified for the Inter-zone round despite failing to finish in the top two in their zones, but advanced as the best third-placed teams in their respective zones.

St James High, the 2008 champions, made it to the Inter-zone round for the eighth consecutive season after having the best points average of 1.625 of the eight third-placed schools in Pool 1.

Old Harbour High had a points average of 2.0 in Pool 2 and both joined the 30 automatic qualifiers, the top two from each of the 15 first round zones that advanced.

St James High suffered through one of the worst seasons in the daCosta Cup in almost 10 years, losing three straight games, two to Cornwall College and one to Green Pond to be eliminated from automatic qualification.

The Theodore Whitmore-coached team, however, rebounded with back-to-back wins, 8-0 over Irwin and 5-2 against Anchovy High to revive their chances of advancing.

Today they will face former champions Vere Technical at the St Elizabeth Technical Sports Complex and will also have Glenmuir High and Morant Bay as well to contend with if they hope to get one of the two qualifying places.

Old Harbour High led Zone N in the first round for long periods of the season, but back-to-back losses to Vere Technical and Kemps Hill placed them out of contention for the automatic spots.

Old Harbour will face Fair Prospect High in a Zone 5 game at Dinthill Technical in Linstead today and will face Cedric Titus and Brimmervale High in their other two games.