Adrian Frater, News Editor

Western Bureau:

Two-time champions, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), and first-timers Manchester High School earned the right to contest next Saturday's ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup final after contrasting victories in yesterday's semi-finals.

At Jarrett Park, Manchester High School created history when they defeated outgoing champions, St James High School, 3-0 on penalties after the teams battled to a 0-0 regulation and extra-time stalemate in their semi-final showdown.

In the other semi-final in Santa Cruz, 1974 and 1999 champions, STETHS, scored an emphatic 3-1 win over Garvey Maceo who were losing for the first time since being reinstated into the inter-zone round following the withdrawal of Old Harbour.

At Jarrett Park, Manchester High had the better of the play against a sluggish-looking St James High. Despite getting the clearer chances, Manchester were mostly off target with their goal attempts. However, in the penalty shoot-out, they were flawless, converting their first three penalties, while St James High missed three attempts.

Missed too many chances

"We should have won the game in regulation time but we missed too many chances," said an elated Manchester High coach, Barry Watson. "We came here determined to win the game and in the end we achieved that objective."

Manchester High's best chances in the first half came through Christopher Henry in the 13th minute and Junior Neil in the 30th minute. Henry broke clear before the goal and fired wide, while Neil took a rebound but failed to get the ball past the goalkeeper.

St James got a glorious chance on the stroke of half-time when Allan Ottey got away before the goal but drove his shot straight at the goalkeeper.

In the second, Manchester continued to look the more composed team but kept wasting chances, especially through substitute Dehair Dyer, who missed two close-range chances.

The usually reliable Ricardo Morris had a glaring miss for St James when he got behind the Manchester defence mid-way the half, but his shot rolled inches wide of the right upright.

Down to penalties, Oral Johnson, Shanaldo Parks and Remawn Thomas converted for STETHS as Ottey, Reid and Jason Malcolm all missed for St James.

In Santa Cruz, it was all but a demolition job for STETHS as they surprised Garvey Maceo behind goals from Deshawn Brown (two) and Javian Williams. Mikhail Howell got Garvey Maceo's consolation goal.

"We really wanted it today and we came into the game hoping to strike early, and we did with those two first-half goals," said STETHS coach Andrew Edwards. "Once we went 3-0 up in the second half, we knew it was all over, although Garvey Maceo made a late surge on us."