MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Defending champions St Elizabeth Technical High (STETHS) will seek to extend a streak of participating in a sixth-straight ISSA/FLOW daCosta Cup final on December 3 when they take on Ben Francis KO champions Lennon High in today’s second semi-final at Manchester High in Mandeville at 2:30 pm.

STETHS, who will get a chance to avenge their loss in the Ben Francis KO final to Lennon High at the same venue last week Friday, have contested every major ISSA rural area Under-19 schoolboy football finals over the past eight years.

Despite Lennon High ending STETHS’s run of winning consecutive Ben Francis KO at six straight last week, both coaches told the

Jamaica Observer this week that the Ben Francis KO final “is history” and today’s game will be the one they are both focusing on.

The winner of today’s game will meet the winner of the other semi-final between Cornwall College and Clarendon College at the St Elizabeth Technical Sports Complex which took place yesterday.

Today’s game will be the third meeting between the teams this season, in addition, a repeat of last year’s semi-finals, which STETHS won 2-1 at Juici Field in Clarendon Park.

Each team has won one game each so far, with STETHS striking the first blow on October 15 when they won their Inter-zone-round game 2-1, but Lennon High won last week’s Ben Francis KO final on penalty kicks after the teams played out a 1-1 draw and are on course for the double.

Lennon Coach Merron Gordon told the Observer this week that, while winning the Ben Francis KO would help build the confidence of the team, their aim was to be playing on December 3.

“That’s what we have been planning for all year,” he said, adding that the wins against STETHS, Cornwall College and Clarendon College were good, but said “that is history and now we have to start all over again”.

Playing against STETHS any time, anywhere “is never a walk over, [and] we are going to have to work twice as hard in the semi-finals”.

STETHS Coach Omar Wedderburn has maintained his mantra this season that “we are going there to have some fun”, but said the daCosta Cup was their major aim every season.

“We lost in the Ben Francis KO final, but we have a chance to retain the daCosta Cup and it’s all about Saturday (today) and what we will be doing,” he said.

Wedderburn said their focus was “on ourselves, what we are going to be doing; this is not about Lennon, this must be about what we will do”.

They could be without striker Javoney Brown, who has scored 19 goals this season, but has missed the last two games with a leg injury.

“On Saturday we are playing to give him a chance to end his daCosta Cup career in style; he is about 55 per cent now, but will be 100 per cent on December 3,” Wedderburn proclaimed.

In the absence of Brown in the starting team, STETHS will be relying on Demar James and Cashane Constantine to get the goals if they are to extend their title-winning run to seven seasons.

STETHS’s problem could be at the back, however, as they have shown some vulnerability, and goalkeeper Lenroy Wallace has let his team down at crucial junctures late in the season.

Lennon High have been living a charmed life, scoring one goal in their last seven games, but have come out on top in their last five thanks to a gritty defence and some luck.

Their goals have come from a variety of places in Fitzroy Cummings and Tavis Grant scoring one each in the two Ben Francis KO games, but earlier in the season Christopher Randall and Kwesi Watt had led them in scoring, but neither has been able to significantly add to their tally since the end of the Inter-zone round.