KINGSTON, Jamaica – Despite not playing the perfect game, St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS) were able to come away with a 3-1 win over a plucky Spanish Town High in Zone D action of the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup at Bumper Hall on Thursday.

All three goals came from set plays, and it was just what the doctor ordered after a week spent working on the very same things in training.

The first goal came directly from a corner kick scored by Shakeone Satchwell as early as the 8th minute, Alexavier Gooden got the second when he headed home from a corner kick taken by Sean Douglas to reestablish the STATHS lead in the 74th minute.

This was after Maleke Brown equalized for Spanish Town with a screamer from outside the box in the 34th minute.

Four minutes after the Gooden goal, Satchwell put the icing on the cake for STATHS when he made it 3-1 from the penalty spot.

Satchwell, who was delighted to score a brace in the game, said that he had been working on the corner kick routine, which led to his first goal.

“I practice it in training over and over. I have been trying it in matches, but I didn’t get the outcome. I feel good, obviously,” he said.

The penalty required a retake after encroachment by some STATHS players, but Satchwell remained cool and calm in the situation, placing the ball in the same spot the second time around.

“That’s the way I kick my penalties, so I was confident that I would score it,” he said.

STATHS have now secured a second-round spot with the win against Spanish Town and Satchwell is confident of what his team can do when they get there.

“I feel very confident going into the next round. We are focusing better, and we are more confident now,” he said.

Head coach, Phillip Williams, was happy that the extra time spent on set piece training during the course of the week paid off on game day.

“We have to be scoring goals from anywhere they can be created and to get three goals from set pieces is a plus in terms of what we worked on this week. We went through a lot of free kicks, a lot of set plays and to see it bearing fruit is delightful,” he admitted.

Williams acknowledged that the performance on the pitch was far from perfect, but said that getting three goals was most important.

“We are going to have games like these where no matter what we do we can’t put together a sequence of good passes and we have to find other ways of winning the game and goal scoring is definitely that route,” he said.

“The important thing was gathering the three points now. In terms of how we played, we have time to go on the training pitch and correct that.”

“We knew that our quality would come through in the end. The guys did what they had to do and that is to gain the three points and we just have to satisfy with that,” he added.

STATHS has one game remaining to play in the first round and now leads the zone on 21 points, one more than second place Jonathan Grant High, who has a game in hand.