Photo: Akiki Jackson celebrates with his teammates after scoring in stoppage time to cap of a fine 4-1 win for St. Georges College over Greater Portmore High in the ISSA/FLOW Manning Cup on Friday.
On a very emotional afternoon where thousands of spectators flooded Winchester Park, St. Georges College registered their third win of the season in the ISSA/FLOW Manning Cup competition. They turned back the challenge of Greater Portmore High 4-1 to register their third win of the season in their first game since the passing of captain Dominic James on Tuesday of last week.
With the memories still very fresh and playing with tears in their eyes, the Sky Blues set about representing not only their school but their fallen brother in front of the parents of young James.
It took STGC all of 38 minutes to break the deadlock when Hakim Williams scored to the delight of the home fans as the tensions were eased and they broke out into the chants of STGC.
Five minutes after the restart Akeem Robotham doubled the lead for St. Georges before a bit of sublime skill from substitute Khymani Cotless reduced the deficit to just one in the 57th minute.
The wily forward scored the goal of the game when he flicked the ball over a defender’s head before beating him for a second time and getting to the by-line. Cotless then squeezed the ball in at the near post to make it 2-1.
But the home team responded when Jevoun McKellar beautifully curled a shot into the top left hand corner of the net in the 72nd minute to restore his team’s two goal advantage.
St. Georges continued to dominate proceedings under overcast skies and four minutes into added time they capped off the afternoon when substitute Akiki Jackson blasted home from the top of the ‘D’, before pulling off an acrobatic celebration to bring more smiles to solemn faces.
“The councillors from the Ministry (of Education), we are grateful for them, keeping the boys focused and ready. So we are grateful for the three points despite the conditions. They played courageous, they stuck to most of the instructions and they gave it their all,” said a sober Marcel Gayle.
Speaking about the emotional state of the players Gayle said, “We are getting there, we are not there fully as yet, it is going to take them more than just five days or a week so we are working on the mental aspects…so we can get them back mentally prepared so going forward we can get better.”
St. Georges College leads Group A with 9 points from three completed games. They trailed 2-1 in the game against Excelsior before it was stopped at the half time break.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login