Garvey Maceo High overcame the disappointment of falling out of the ISSA/Digicel Champions Cup in the first round by upstaging daCosta Cup champions Clarendon College (CC) 3-2 in the semifinals of that competition last week.

CC were heavy favourites to advance to the final as they aimed to make it three wins in a row, but Garvey Maceo ended that dream as they got closer to their own.

Garvey Maceo’s assistant coach Dane Chambers was pleased with the performance of his boys who led the champions and resisted their late surge to get over the line.

“I am pleased with them. We know the Clarendon College team finish strong at all times. We defended stoutly, we had numbers behind the ball consistently.”

Garvey Maceo led 2-0 and 3-1 and Chambers acknowledged that they made mistakes to let the champions back into the game, but was happy with the outcome in the end.

“We made a few mistakes that cost us some goals, but we did enough and we have to lift our hats off to the team. We know we are strong defensively and it showed. We held our position right throughout the game.”

Chambers says that the entire Garvey Maceo community needs victory in the final of the daCosta Cup.

“We owe this one to the school, the Past Students Association who have been backing us, the parents for sending out their kids during the COVID time and we are going to go there and make the fraternity proud.”

He said that recovering from the Champions Cup disappointment had not been very difficult.

“After the Champions Cup (loss) I told them that I am very proud of them. We kept on motivating them. It was the first game of the season that we didn’t score and we told them we have to score every game if we want to win.”

Garvey Maceo will play the Mannings School in the final and Chambers is expecting it to be a tough challenge against difficult opponents.

“Mannings must be doing something good why they are in the final and all season we have been hearing about them. We know they are playing good football, but we are playing good football also, but we love being the underdogs. So, we are going to go there hungry and we know they are hungry also because they haven’t won it before.

“We won it once, we want to make it twice. It’s going to be a good final,” he promised.

The daCosta Cup final will be the feature game of a doubleheader at the STETHS Sports Complex on Friday. The Ben Francis Cup final, which will be contested by William Knibb and STETHS, will be the curtain-raiser, starting at 1 pm.