It will be the first all-rural area ISSA Champions Cup final in the history of the competition after Clarendon College (CC) and Dinthill Technical High School recorded different, but not quite contrasting, victories in the semi-finals of the competition at the Stadium East field yesterday.
CC, who are defending daCosta Cup champions, booked their place in their second consecutive final with a 2-0 victory over dethroned champions Kingston College (KC) in the opening match of the double-header.
Striker Keheim Dixon, in the 85th, and Christopher Hull, in the 89th, were the goalscorers for the Lenworth ‘Teacher’ Hyde-coached team.
It was sweet revenge for CC, who were beaten 1-0 by KC in the 2019 final.
In the second match of the double-header, Dinthill advanced to their first-ever Champions Cup final, after an exciting 5-4 penalty shootout win over Jamaica College (JC). This after both teams had played out a 0-0 draw at full time.
BRILLIANT PERFORMANCE
In the opening match, Dixon produced a brilliant attacking performance for CC as he scored and provided the assist for Hull to score to lead his team into the final.
The 16-year-old Dixon, a resident of Trench Town in Kingston, was very hard to contain throughout the match, with nifty dribbling and clever off-the-ball movements creating no ends of headaches for the normally robust KC backline.
Dixon gave CC the lead when he took the away ball from KC defender Khalifah McCarthy in opponent’s third. He then proceeded to dribble by two defenders, before toe-poking his effort between the legs of KC custodian, David Martin.
Dxion then turned provider four minutes later when he set up Hull with a beautiful pass for the latter to score, and sealed the victory for CC.
Hyde was full of praise for Dixon’s efforts.
“This youngster is very talented and I think that he will become one of Jamaica’s leading strikers in the future, if he continues on this path,” Hyde said.
“He has all the necessary requirements to become a top-class player and he showed it out there in the way he controlled the game for us,” he said.
Hyde was happy to be back in the final, especially on the back of the kind of performance he saw from his charges.
“I think that I love the fight and determination that the players put in today. We played with a lot of heart and I think we wanted it more than KC,” he said.
On the other hand, KC’s head coach, Ludlow Bernard, was very disappointed with his team’s efforts.
“I think that we had a bad day today, and the unit that I am very confident in let me down today,” said Bernard.
“I think that we have to rebound as best as possible because we are still in the major competition (Manning Cup semi-finals), which is very important to us,” he said.
In the second match, JC and Dinthill battled hard but found they could only manage to cancel each other out at both ends of the field.
Dinthill’s players then stepped up and were perfect from 12-yards. Michael Graham missed JC’s fourth spot kick to hand Shamar Martin the chance to win the game with the final kick of the round. He made no mistake.