PHILLIP Williams, coach of last year’s beaten finalists St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS), shared that his players are feeling relieved after securing their first victory of the season in the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup competition on Saturday.

STATHS recorded a hard-fought 1-0 win over Calabar at the Collie Smith Drive field, this after playing to a 0-0 draw in their opening match of the season against Vauxhall.

Javaunie Douglas netted the all-important goal for STATHS in the 19th minute but both teams ended with 10 men, after Calabar’s Jaheim Rankine received a straight red card for using indecent language directed towards the assistant referee in the 76th minute. STATHS were also reduced to 10 in the 90th minute when J-Loyd Smith received a second yellow card.

“I am feeling relieved for the boys because it is a relatively young team, and with the result of the first game I think there was some amount of panic within the camp,” said Williams. “We spoke to them last night [Friday], telling them that it is a long season and they need to relax, and so these three points will definitely go a far way in settling the nerves of the coaches and players.”

Williams noted that he was pleased with his team’s first-half display but believes in the second period they lacked composure as they allowed their opponents to dictate the pace of the match.

“We were dominant in the first half, ut in the second half, I don’t think we showed our class that much,” he said. “It got worse when we had the man advantage, and that is an area of concern that we need to look at in terms of how to kill off games and how to settle games.”

Andrew Price, coach of Calabar, said his team’s poor first-half display led to their defeat.

“I think we came out very flat in the first half, and we allowed the crowd to get into the game by allowing STATHS to do as they wanted,” Price said.

“We weren’t aggressive enough, and we weren’t first to the ball, but in the second half we made the adjustments — and when we did we saw the team playing much better. Even when we were down to 10 men, we were still threatening.”

“But, all in all, it was an away game in a hostile environment, and the team is young. They just have to get used to this type of situation,” Price reasoned.

STATHS dominated the early exchanges in the first half and were finally rewarded when Douglas pounced on a loose ball inside the 18-yard box to fire home past goalkeeper Omari Grant. Douglas came close to doubling his team’s lead a few minutes later but his powerful shot from 12 yards sailed high over the crossbar. In fact, STATHS had their opponents on the back foot for almost the entire first period, creating several clear-cut chances, but they failed to increase their advantage due to poor shooting from their attackers. On the other hand, Calabar failed to record a shot on target in the first half.

The green-and-black-clad Calabar came out looking much better in the second half and thought they had found the equaliser in the 50th minute, but Jaden Edwards missed an easy scoring opportunity from 10 yards. Edwards, who had a good game for Calabar, miskicked his effort with an open goal in front of him. Calabar created several other scoring chances in the second half, but failed to convert.

Kingston College (KC), Jamaica College (JC) and St George’s College (StGC) scored 39 unanswered goals against their respective opponents as they continue to flex their muscles, with KC hammering Cumberland 18-0, JC battering Ascot 11-0, and StGC defeating Papine 10-0.

Saturday’s results

Kingston College 18, Cumberland 0

Jamaica College 11, Ascot 0

Excelsior 7, Bridgeport 1

Holy Trinity 1, St Catherine 4

Papine 0, St George’s College 10