St Catherine looking to build on tournament success

Anthony Patrick, coach of back-to-back champions of the First Half Only 45 Football Extravaganza, St Catherine High School, Anthony Patrick is hopeful the preparation gained from the tournament will enhance their prospects in the ISSA Manning Cup.

A hat-trick from Kadean Young helped St Catherine High defeat Manchester High School 3-1 in the final of the pre-season tournament held at Trelawny Multipurpose Stadium on Saturday.

The winning team pocketed a $500,000 cheque. Six schools - St Catherine High, William Knibb Memorial High, Manchester High, Munro College, Calabar High and Kingston Technical High - competed in the extravaganza.

"The 15 and 16 year olds definitely came in and played a major part. They demonstrated playing football in that condition, with the pitch (with sand) itself being challenging. It says a lot about them," said Patrick.

"Manchester really put up a fight against us," he added.

In reference to the competition, Patrick said: "I think it helped us to do so well in the Manning Cup last year with reaching the finals. Hopefully, we can get the same thing going forward again this season.

"This competition is welcomed. We are happy to play again, and definitely achieved our goal which was to go (win) back-to-back."

After an impressive run, in the semi-finals, Zone A winners St Catherine High cruised into the final with a 4-2 victory over Calabar High.

Zone B winners Manchester High defeated Munro College 2-0 in a very competitive semi-final game.

Losing coach Johnoy Chambers said despite a disappointing result, the boys' performance was commendable.

"The boys showed up and showed a lot of fight. I don't want to hold the result against them. At the end of the day, we went into this competition with several objectives, one of them being winning the competition," said Chambers.

"Other goals were met such as dominating other teams. Overall, I can't bash my players at all, the performance they gave was excellent."

In the final matchup, the 45-minute game saw St Catherine High take the lead with a beautiful strike courtesy of Young in the 10th minute, and Young again scored at the 28th to double their lead.

Manchester would not back down and in the 33rd minute, Jehvontae Gordon registered the only goal for his team.

Young completed his hat-trick in the 45th minute to secure the win and was crowned Most Valuable Player.

Events director Hanif Comrie says the tournament organisers have set their sights on next year, with a hope of getting more patrons coming out to support.

"We aim to fill the stands next year and ensure patrons come out to a telling experience. This year's execution was perfectly bottled. We also plan to traverse all 14 parishes, one parish at a time," Comrie said.