LAST year’s finalist Hydel, along with St Catherine, booked their places in the semi-finals of the ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup competition by recording identical results in their quarter-final Group B matches on Saturday.

Hydel played out an exciting 1-1 draw with Campion College in front of a capacity crowd at the Spanish Town Prison Oval. Tyler Falconer gave Campion College the lead in the 73rd minute, but Hydel’s Captain Ronaldo Barrett netted the equaliser in the 88th minute. In the group’s other game, St Catherine and Excelsior played to an entertaining 3-3 draw at Stadium East.

The Devon Anderson-coached Hydel finished atop Group B with five points, one ahead of St Catherine and Campion. After both teams ended the round with the same number of points and goal difference, St Catherine advanced to the semi-finals with their 2-0 win over Campion. Excelsior finished at the bottom of the standings with two points.

Despite advancing, Anderson expressed dissatisfaction with his team’s performance.

“The performance of my team was very poor because we made the game very hard for ourselves,” he said. “We created numerous chances to kill off the game and we didn’t; but Campion got a breakaway and scored against us, putting us behind the eight ball. We had to come back in order to equalise the game.

“I had four of my starters out but, regardless of that, we had other players who could have finished the game for us. We just failed to put away our chances.”

Campion’s Head Coach Newton Sterling was also disappointed with his team’s performance.

“Our boys fought tremendously to get a goal, and we got the goal, but a lapse in concentration in defence towards the end cost us and we gave up a goal,” he said. “Obviously, my boys are down at the moment but we have to refocus because we still have the Walker Cup to play.”

Hydel and St Catherine join Kingston College and Jamaica College in the semi-finals.