Kingston College has been declared champions of the Lacrosse Taino Cup after the season was cancelled by the governing Jamaica Lacrosse Association (JLA) and their coach, Kenneith Subratie, believes his team is deserving of the tite.

Kingston College (KC) and Jamaica College (JC) had reached the final before the competition was suspended in March following the outbreak of the coronavirus..

A statement from the JLA said based on “widely varying, projected conditions of the pandemic for the next few months, the Maroon and Taino Cup Championships are now cancelled”.

“Since we have completed most of the scheduled games for the season with just the finals remaining, we have decided to go ahead and award first, second, third and fourth places based on the finalists/points standings in the league,” the statement continued.

KC and St Hugh’s High were declared champions of the Taino and Maroon Cup championships, respectively, with JC and Excelsior High girls runners-up.

The Jamaica Observer had sought comments from the new champions KC and dethroned champion JC, but the latter refused to comment noting that a statement will be forthcoming from Principal Wayne Robinson.

Meanwhile, KC Coach Subratie said the JLA’s decision must be respected although he wanted both teams to be named joint champions.

“The issue of decisions made are sometimes not favourable with other teams. But like last year, for example, when we fought to end in the preliminary round in first spot and we had thought that the semi-final would have been (1 vs 4) and (2 vs 3), but that was not done by the JLA as they opted to go (1 vs 3) and (2 vs 4). We were pretty upset, but we honoured the fixtures because that was the right thing to do,” Subratie pointed out.

“Their decisions have not been popular on occasions, but as it relates to KC being declared the 2020 champions is based on statistics throughout the tournament,” he noted.

KC had won all nine games including a close 5-4 win over JC. They also romped to victories over Hillel High (25-0), Calabar (4-1), Excelsior (17-0), Wolmer’s (10-0), St George’s College (12-0) and 8-3 in the semi-final, while getting the points against Campion College and Penwood High.

“My opinion was that I would not have had a problem if both teams — KC and JC — were declared joint title holders or joint champions for 2020,” said Subratie.

“If the shoe was on the other foot, if we were in JC’s position regardless if the other team had a superior statistic and are undefeated, if I got into the final we would have felt that we had an opportunity. So I would be very understanding of how the JC family would be feeling based on the decision of the JLA,” he pointed out.

Subratie explained that it would have been difficult to play the final based on the situation in terms of providing safety for the students.

“So there were only two options that the JLA were looking at in awarding the team with the better stats or awarding both teams with the joint title. But they went ahead and made their decision and we just have to respect it,” he said.

“My heart goes out to the JC family, the coach and the boys. I think that the boys are excellent competitors and they fought hard so, too, KC from the very first match and we maintained a very high standard and it was the highest amongst all the schools that participated and you cannot ignore that is you want to be fair and have a logical argument,” ended Subratie.

— Howard Walker