AFTER ensuring first-time qualification to next season’s Jamaica Premier League (JPL), Treasure Beach FC of St Elizabeth and Lime Hall Academy of St Ann will have just over two months to prepare for the biggest assignment in their history.

With the JPL set to start in late August or early September the clubs must be ready to face the big guns of the country’s top club football competition, after prevailing in their Jamaica Football Federation Tier II return-leg semi-finals that ended on Sunday.

St Elizabeth will get a Premier League team for the first time in over 40 years while St Ann will have two teams in the competition for the first time since the mid-1990s, when the likes of Black Stars and Volvo were among the top teams in the country.

Treasure Beach FC advanced 2-0 on aggregate after playing out a 0-0 draw with 10-man Tru-Juice at the Bramwell-Clarke Sports Complex in Ewarton, while Lime Hall beat Racing United 4-3 on penalties at Drax Hall after they played out a 4-4 tie on aggregate.

Meanwhile Danny Beckford, president of the St Ann FA, and Barbara Black, president of Lime Hall Academy, are both ecstatic with the team’s promotion.

Lime Hall Academy will join JPL champions Mt Pleasant FA, and Beckford said he hopes the club will be able to avoid the pitfalls that usually affect new clubs, such as getting players contractually bound as well resource challenges.

Black, who has been the president of the club since 2009, told the Jamaica Observer they were already being approached by potential sponsors and would be meeting with them soonest.

“Success attracts people, and we have had a lot of people seeking to come on board and we will meet with them soon,” she said.

Black, who was still hoarse from all the celebrations on Sunday after Racing United’s final penalty kick sailed over the bar, said they had always been forced to fight hard for anything — and this season was no different.

“Every time we came up to a roadblock we have had to raise our game; and we were the fourth seed up against the top seed but we prevailed,” she said.

Racing United, who topped the regular season points tables, had won 2-1 after the regulation 90 minutes at Drax Hall on Sunday, to tie up the scores at 4-4 after they had lost the first leg by the same scoreline at Prison Oval.

Raheem Edwards scored for Racing in the 21st minute to tie up the aggregate scores at 3-3 but Kimani Beckford scored his first goal of the season in the 31st minute to give Lime Hall the edge at 4-3.

DeAndre Johnson, however, tied up the aggregate scores when he scored in the 60th minute after neither team was able to break the tie in 30 minutes of extra time; it was then decided on penalties.

Meanwhile at Bramwell-Clarke complex Tru-Juice were reduced to 10 men after just seven minutes when Captain Sievon Thompson was sent off for striking an opponent.