MAY PEN, Clarendon Former champions Glenmuir High and St Elizabeth Technical High (STETHS) and BB Coke are the first qualifiers for the quarter-finals of the ISSA/Wata daCosta Cup football competition after wins in their return leg second-round games yesterday.

Glenmuir High swamped Morant Bay High 9-0 for a 12-0 aggregate win, STETHS were 2-0 winners over Irwin High for a 3-0 aggregate win, while BB Coke were 3-0 winners over Paul Bogle High for a 5-0 aggregate win.

Jahmaul Wright, Semar Williams and Tevon Morris were the scorers for BB Coke High, who are returning to the quarter-finals for the first time since 2019.

The other 13 quarter-final spots will be decided today when the second round comes to an end with the remaining return games.

Defending champions Clarendon College will be one of four schools that will put their perfect win records on the line, including Manchester High, Dinthill Technical, and Happy Grove High School.

Additionally, the scores in three games are tied while in another four games sees teams with one goal leads.

Clarendon College and Garvey Maceo High should confirm their places in the next round, boasting massive leads of 8-0 over deCarteret College and 7-0 over St Mary High respectively.

Also Frome Technical who leads Vere Technical 4-1, Cornwall College who leads Black River High 3-1, Christiana High who are 3-0 ahead of Rusea’s High and Dinthill Technical who will be at home with a 2-0 lead over Horace Clarke High, should also make progress.

A number of games are still in the balance, however, including Mile Gully High vs Belair High, which is tied at 1-1, Cedric Titus High against Tacky High, which is at 0-0, the same score as Central High vs William Knibb Memorial.

Dewight Jeremiah, the coach of the William Knibb team admitted on Saturday that a draw was not the result he wanted. “We wanted to take something back to Clarendon because its always going to be difficult on the road,” he said.

He argued that given that Central High were ranked higher as well as being a finalist last season, “we could have been overturned easily but I felt we gave them enough problems and I am seeing enough in this game to suggest that with a little more fine-tuning we can give them some more problems in Clarendon and I honestly feel that we can progress to the round of 16 from this tie.”

On paper, the game between Mile Gully and Belair High could be the closest contest on the day with very little statistically between them in the rankings.

Mile Gully who won Zone G are ranked 16th and Belair High the Zone F runners-up are ranked 17th, but Belair High scored 38 goals compared to Mile Gully’s 18 in the first round.

Cedric Titus will be hoping to rebound from their first game without scoring this season after amassing 38 goals in 10 games in the first round.

There could be some concerns, however, after being beaten 4-1 in their final first-round game, albeit using mostly substitutes, then being held goalless by Tacky.

Edwin Allen who won the Ben Francis KO and were daCosta Cup semi-finalists the last two years, are trailing McGrath High in their tie but will be confident they will be able to overturn the deficit early.

Mannings School, semi-finalists in the last two seasons and the fourth-ranked team, also trail 29th-ranked Port Antonio High but will be playing at Llandilo Sports Complex where they hope to get home advantage.

Saturday’s loss was the first for Mannings School this season.

Munro College will also have to overturn their first leg 1-0 loss to Manchester High when they go to Mandeville.