St Elizabeth Technical High are the undisputed rural area football kingpins, after adding the ISSA/Flow DaCosta Cup to the Ben Francis KO they won earlier, beating Dinthill Technical in the final at the Montego Bay Sports Complex on Saturday evening.
A header in the 57th minute from Neville Morgan was the difference between the two evenly matched teams as STETHS won their fifth DaCosta Cup and second in three years after making it to five straight finals.
Previously the Santa Cruz based school had won in 1974, 1999, 2009 and 2013.
The loss dented Dinthill Technical’s hopes of a third title and first since 1981 and coach Anthony Patrick who was seeking to join a select group of coaches to win both the DaCosta Cup and Manning Cup titles.
Few chances were created in the slow paced first half with each team having their fair share of the chances.
Michael Kerr, who failed to score for the first time in five games, hit the Dinthill cross bar in the 20th minute and he was just eased off the ball later in the half after he got into the area with a clear shot at goal.
Dinthill’s Anton Rhule had a good opportunity mid-way the half but he sidefooted the ball over the bar with only the STETHS goalkeeper, Kenroy Wallace, to face.
Jahmari Ranger should have done better as well as he shot just wide of the far right post late in the half.
The second half provided much more excitement and STETHS, who stormed out of the gate and had two good earl chances, finally took the lead.
In the 57th minute Morgan, powered a header past the Dinthill goalkeeper from a corner to send their fans into raptures.
Four minutes later, Shawn Genus wasted a good chance to kill off the game as a contest, but he missed from four yards out, sweeping a low cross from the right, over the cross bar.
Dinthill then threw everything into attack and exposed their flanks but despite several gilt edged chances, STETHS failed to add to the tally even when they were alone in the Dinthill half with only the goalkeeper at their mercy.
