The race for places in the second round of the ISSA Rural Area Junior boys’ football competition is heating up with the preliminary rounds quickly drawing to a close.

So far, three schools have secured their places in the next round of the Burger King Under-14 and Mighty Malt Under-16 competitions: Cornwall College and Irwin High from Zone A and McGrath High from Zone J.

The first round is set to end on Tuesday, February 3 with the top two teams from each zone along with the two best third-placed teams qualifying for the next round.

Cornwall College, Rusea’s High in Zone B, Manchester High in Zone F, Morant Bay High in Zone L and Titchfield High in Zone M all have perfect records so far among the early qualifiers in the Under-14 competition.

So far Garvey Maceo High from Zone I, Dinthill Technical and McGrath High from Zone J are also through to the next round.

Cornwall College are also perfect in the Under-16 competition, so far as well as Clarendon College from Zone H, while also making early progress are Irwin High, Muschett High and William Knibb Memorial from Zone D as well as McGrath High and Old Harbour High from Zone J.

A number of schools are also on the verge of qualifying including St Elizabeth Technical, who have won all three games in Zone E and are tied on nine points with Munro College, who have played four games.

Bellefield High and Brown’s Town High have also won three consecutive games, while Edwin Allen High have won three of their four played so far.

Manchester High have won all five games played in the Under-16 competition; Rusea’s High and Munro College have won four-straight with defending champions Glenmuir High winning all three games played so far.