SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Seven-time champions Cornwall College will be hoping to rebound from Saturday’s last-minute loss in the final of the FLOW Super Cup when they take on Lennon High in the second semi-final of the ISSA/FLOW Ben Francis Knockout today at the St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) Sports Complex in Santa Cruz, starting at 2:30 pm.

The winner of this game, the first- ever meeting between the schools at any level in football, will meet defending champions STETHS — who edged Clarendon College on sudden death penalties after playing to a 3-3 result after full and extra time yesterday at Manchester High School.

Yesterday both teams were cautiously optimistic going into today’s game, where Lennon High will be seeking to make it to the final for the first time while Cornwall College are seeking to return for the first time since winning a seventh title in 2003.

Cornwall College are coming off a potentially devastating loss to Wolmer’s Boys’ in the FLOW Super Cup final in Kingston on Saturday, but coach Dr Dean Weatherly, who led them to four Ben Francis titles, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday, “The Super Cup is now history, we can’t do anything about that now, but it is up to us to determine the future of this team.”

Saturday’s game was the first time this season that Cornwall College were held scoreless, a span of 19 games where they scored 65 times.

“Saturday’s loss was a learning experience, not just for the season,” Dr Weatherly told the Observer. “…but for the boys for the rest of their lives, and we have to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps for this new challenge.”

Dr Weatherly said Saturday’s game, that left some of his players devastated, “could be the turning point of our season and one that will wake us up, in case we had gotten complacent with our unbeaten run all season, and we must now move forward”.

Merron Gordon, the Lennon High coach, refused to accept that his team are dark horses or underdogs, compared to the other three with their impressive statistics this season.

“There is no such thing in Jamaica schoolboys’ football,” he told the Observer yesterday, “We have as good a chance as any other team to make it to the final.”

Lennon have made it to one ISSA schoolboys Under-19 final, the daCosta Cup in 2010 when they were beaten by a controversial goal in extra time against Rusea’s High at Jarrett Park and he said it’s time for them to make it to another final.

Lennon High only made it past the first round of the competition by beating Clarendon College 2-0 in their final game, to edge Thompson Town by a point, and were second place in their inter-zone round to STETHS — winning one game, drawing another and losing one.

They have scored just one goal in their last five games, winning three, drawing one and losing the other, but Gordon was not concerned by their recent record. “We have been working hard as a team and that’s what matters, and we get goals from all parts of the team.”

He said winning all three quarter-final games by 1-0 margins “was not our plan, but that is how it happened”, and he said the plan for today was “to shut down Cornwall and capitalise on our chances; we have been creating the chances but we have not been scoring”.

Christopher Randall leads the team with three goals since the start of the inter-zone round, with Fitzroy Cummings scoring two and Travis Grant — who scored the winner against Rusea’s High on Wednesday — on one, along with Odane Grant and Kwesi Watt.

Cornwall College’s Jourdaine Fletcher alone matches the total by the five Lennon High players and, after failing on Saturday to score in a game for the first time all season, will hope to add to his 27 goals scored all season.

Fletcher scored just one of Cornwall College’s five goals against Manchester High last week and Dr Weatherly will hope Peter-Lee Vassell, who has scored six goals since the start of the inter-zone round and 10 all season, Aiden Jokomba, Garnett Hudson and Shavon McDonald will support Fletcher.

Meanwhile, the Cornwall College defence will be boosted today with the return of Michael Haven, who missed Saturday’s Super Cup final after an accumulation of yellow cards and was replaced by 15-year-old Calvin Gardner.