MONA High captured the 2017 Inter-Secondary School’s Sports Association/Jamaica Hockey Federation (JHF) respective boys’ and girls’ Under-16 titles after winning both finals at Mona Hockey field last week Tuesday.

Mona Under-16 girls team, who were the defending champions, went through the season with an unblemished win record.Mona girls, coached by Kerieon Grant, first registered a 1-0 win over Excelsior High through a 35th-minute goal by Imany Linton. She was also named MVP of the final.In the Under-16 final for boys, the George Glashan-coached Mona aggregation defeated defending champions Munro College 3-0 on penalties after they had played to a 2-2 draw in regulation time. Mona won the one-on-one penalty shoot-out.Prior to the penalty shoot-out after both teams had played to a 2-2, Nickoy Stephenson and Nakochi Smith scored Mona’s goals in the 14th and 44th minutes, respectively. Zamor Cargill and Dandre Smalling scored Munro’s goals in the 30th and 47th minutes, respectively. Stephenson of Mona was named the MVP of the boys’ final.“The players are quite elated, but it was however a hard-fought encounter as Excelsior came out fighting. However, the heavy downpour of rain on the surface was a set back as we were not worried as we normally would have been three goals up in matches,” Grant, who also coaches the Under-19 team that won this year league.Glashan, the winning coach of Mona’s Under-16 boys team, said he was really elated as he not only wanted to win, but also the players were looking forward to come out victoriously.“The boys also felt very happy as they worked very hard for this victory despite it had to be decided on penalty shoot-outs,” he said.Merl Grove High clipped Papine High 1-0 to capture the third-place play-off in the Under-16 girls, while the Kingston College and Clan Carthy’s third-place play-off game was not played and instead will be played later this month.The ISSA/JHF Under-14 boys and girls hockey competitions are scheduled to begin this month.— Gerald Reid