After seeing his team go toe to toe with favourites Jamaica College (JC), Excelsior High Head Coach Keon Broderick believes the improvement in their discipline is bearing fruit.

The Mountain View Avenue-based boys had held JC to a draw in their first encounter, but were unable to replicate or better that result when they went down 1-3 on Wednesday.

Excelsior had gone into the half-time break a goal down after Donald Stewart scored for JC, but Kimarly Scott found the equaliser for the hosts in the 50th minute. JC took command of the top-of-the-table clash thanks to second-half goals from Javaun Mills and Amarlie King.

It means JC will virtually assured of top Zone F honours as they lead with 19 points, six clear of Excelsior. JC need only a point to confirm their spot.

Despite the result, Broderick says he’s heartened by his team’s efforts against the many-time champions.

“We’ve been scoring in all games so far. It’s very difficult to stop an Excelsior team from scoring so we know we have the ability to play good, attacking football. It’s just about how much we can limit the mistakes, especially around the back because two of the goals we conceded, it was based off defensive mistakes,” he said.

Excelsior haven’t won an Under-19 football title in close to two decades, despite consistently making it out of the group stages.

However, Broderick believes they are getting closer to challenging after instilling much needed discipline in the team.

“What we’ve been is doing is to ensure we have a disciplined squad off the field and that will transfer on the field,” he said.

“Talent is not a problem here at Excelsior, I’m a past student and when I was here, the talent was in abundance but the discipline was an issue in the last decade or so. So for us, what we’re more focused on is the discipline on and off the field. You can see it’s a disciplined bunch and we expect them to do well moving forward.”

With sights set on the second round, Broderick is confident his players can raise their standards even more.

“It’s to now keep them grounded and keep them focused and so far they’ve been doing that. We have some very good boys in terms of maturity. Just to look at their faces, losing a game against JC, [it] shows they wanted more and shows they have high expectations which is always good.”

WEDNESDAY’S RESULTS

Excelsior 1, Jamaica College 3

Calabar 10, Kingston Technical 2

STATHS 2, Camperdown 0

Jose Marti 0, Kingston College 1

Edith Dalton 0, Wolmer’s 9Penwood 0, Campion 3