ST JAMES, Jamaica— It was mission accomplished for first year Cornwall College coach Theodore Whitmore after their 4-0 win over Spot Valley High in the ISSA/Wata daCosta Cup Group 1 game at Jarrett Park on Tuesday, which enabled the Montego Bay-based school to qualify for the round of 16.

After drawing their first two games, Cornwall College were 15 minutes away from ending their season before they scored four times in an 11-minute span to rescue their season, ensuring three more daCosta Cup games plus at least one in the Ben Francis KO.

It was a hard blow for Spot Valley High who had their best season in years, but lost their form at the worst time, losing all three Round of 32 games. But coach Damion Nelson said he would give his players a seven out of 10 grade.

Cornwall College finished second in the group on five points, two behind Kemps Hill who edged Rusea’s High 1-0 in Clarendon.  Whitmore said getting past the second round was part of their plans.

“We had set out to making it past the (Round of 32) and now we are looking forward to the next round,” Whitmore told Observer Online after the game.

Whitmore said he was expecting the games to get tougher the further they advanced into the competition. “It’s gonna be tough, there’s no easy games but we are looking forward to the challenge,” he stated.

He was not totally pleased with the execution from the players saying “they are the ones who made it difficult for themselves, they put themselves in this position.” He added that it was now up to him and his staff to get them to the next level.

“It’s not hard. It’s not, it’s not a difficult task, they know the task, they know what they have to do, at times it is a bit of indiscipline creeping in and we need to work on that,” he argued.

Spot Valley had failed to win a game when they were in Zone A last year, losing twice to Cornwall College 4-0 and 4-1, dominated Zone C this year, topping the group, scoring 30 goals in the process and were unbeaten over 10 games, drawing twice.

They, however, hit a big hurdle once they got to the second round, losing 1-0 to Rusea’s High and then 2-1 to Kemps Hill and only had pride to play for on Tuesday.

Regardless of their performance in the second round, Nelson said they had a good season overall.

“Most of these players are young and when you get to the second round, it is more mental than physical and you have to take your chances and not concede,” he argued.

With an eye to the future, Nelson said given they knew coming into the game against Cornwall Cornwall they could not advance, they opted to give the younger players a chance to impress, “give them some experience as come next year, we are back at it again.”

He admitted they could have done better “but we understand football and also that we won’t always have all the resources that we need, so we think we rate about a seven out of 10 for the season.”