Five schools hoping to maintain perfect record in daCosta Cup
PAUL A REID, Observer Writer reidp@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, September 22, 2008
LACOVIA, St Elizabeth - Five schools will be seeking to maintain their perfect win records in the ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup schoolboy football competition when the competition continues this afternoon.
Former champions Rusea's High and St Elizabeth Technical High (STETHS); upstarts Anchovy High and Denbigh High, as well as Marcus Garvey High have won all their games played so far, while Maggotty High will go for a third straight win after losing their first game.
The Andrew Edwards-coached STETHS are expected to be tested for the first time this season when they take on Lacovia High in a Zone E game in Lacovia.
STETHS have so far breezed through their first two games, scoring 14 unanswered goals, including nine in Saturday's romp over BB Coke in Santa Cruz, but are lying in third place on six points, a point behind joint leaders Lacovia and Munro College.
Despite being less than 10 minutes apart, Lacovia have languished in the long shadow cast by the two-time champions and their 3-1 win in the return leg last season was their only win in the last eight meetings between both teams.
Lacovia are off to a fast start, piling up seven points from their first three games and held Munro College to a 0-0 draw at Munro on Saturday.
They will hope that playing at home will give them the edge over the high-scoring STETHS, who will be led by Deshorn Brown, the scorer of eight goals so far.
Maggotty, who won two games after losing their first of the season to STETHS, will host Munro, who they have beaten just once in the 2004 season, but have scored against just once in their last four games, while conceding 19 goals over the same period.
Rusea's High and Anchovy are on course for a clash between unbeaten teams on Wednesday if they can win today against Knockalva and Merlene Ottey, respectively.
Marcus Garvey have surged to the top of Zone D with back-to-back wins, but will face second-placed Brown's Town at Addison Park and will be gunning to make amends for a 1-6 thrashing in the second game between both teams last season.
Denbigh High have won both games in Zone H so far and are joint leaders with Lennon, but will be seeking their first win overt former champions Clarendon College in three years.
Clarendon College were beaten 0-1 by Lennon in their opening game on Saturday and must start winning if they are to keep in touch with the leaders.
Games on today
Zone B - Knockalva vs Rusea's, Anchovy vs Merlene Ottey, Frome vs Green Island Zone D - Ocho Rios vs Cedric Titus, Browns Town vs Marcus Garvey Zone E - Lacovia vs STETHS, BB Coke vs Balaclava, Maggotty vs Munro Zone H - Clarendon vs Denbigh, Thompson Town vs Claude McKay All games will start at 3:30 pm.