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Mona High

Camperdown, Tivoli disqualified from Manning Cup after fielding ineligible players

As both teams were in Group B, they will be replaced in the quarterfinal round by the third and fourth-placed teams from the group, Excelsior High and STATHS.

The new list of teams advancing to the quarterfinal round now reads: Jamaica College, Kingston Technical, Excelsior High, STATHS, Kingston College, Mona High, Charlie Smith, and St. Catherine High.

JC, Mona, STATHS, and St, Catherine High will be in Group 1 while KC, Excelsior, Charlie Smith, and Kingston Tech will be in Group 2.

Each team will play each other once and the top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals.

Mona High to meet defending champions St. Catherine High in Walker Cup final

Mona High secured a comfortable 5-0 win over Kingston Technical to advance to the final.

Two long range strikes from Romario Thomas in the 27th and 44th minutes allowed Mona to go into halftime with a 2-0 lead.

In the second half, goals from Robinho Gordon in the 49th, Kenaldo Brown in the 54th, and Damoy Whitfield in the 73rd propelled the St. Andrew-based school to the final.

St. Catherine High beat Excelsior High 2-1 in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw to progress to the final.

Javauney Simms gave Excelsior the lead in the 36th minute but St. Catherine equalized in the 46th minute through a brilliant strike from Nickyle Ellis.

The two teams then endured a ridiculous penalty shootout, which saw them miss their first six combined penalties before St. Catherine held their nerve and scored their last two to advance.

Mona will be looking for their first Walker Cup title, while St. Catherine will be looking to become back-to-back winners of the knockout competition.

Schoolboy football roundup: KC and Charlie Smith advance to Manning Cup semis, Garvey Maceo advances in daCosta Cup

After originally finishing fourth in Group B behind Camperdown, Tivoli and Excelsior, they advanced to the quarterfinal round as a second-placed team after Camperdown and Tivoli were disqualified from the competition for using ineligible players.

On Friday at Jamaica College, they played out a 1-1 draw with Mona High to advance from Group 1 along with defending champions Jamaica College to the last four of the competition.

JC finished with a perfect nine points from three games with a 3-1 win over St. Catherine at Stadium East.

On Saturday, Kingston College (KC) secured the top spot in Group 2 with a 2-0 win over Excelsior also at Jamaica College.

Charlie Smith beat Kingston Technical4-1 in the other Group 2 game to advance alongside KC.

KC will play STATHS in one semi-final and JC will play Charlie Smith in the other.

Meanwhile, Mona, Excelsior, Kingston Technical and St. Catherine High will contest the Walker Cup.

In the daCosta Cup, Dinthill Technical and The Mannings School advanced to the semi-finals on Friday.

Dinthill won Zone 1 after beating Edwin Allen 1-0 at Drax Hall, their third win in as many games.

Christiana beat William Knibb 3-2 in the other Zone 1 match at Drax Hall.

Mannings played to a 1-1 draw with Munro College at STETHS to finish with seven points from their three matches and win Zone 2.

Vere Technical and Happy Grove played a seven-goal thriller in the other Zone 2 game at STETHS on the day, with the former prevailing 4-3.

On Saturday, Garvey Maceo pulled off something special to get into the semi-finals.

Entering their final match against St. Thomas Technical at Kirkvine, trailing STETHS by three goals on goal difference, Garvey Maceo produced a massive 12-0 victory over St Thomas Technical to win Zone 3 and advance.

STETHS tried their best with a 6-0 win over Frome Technical at home but it wasn’t enough.

Garvey Maceo and STETHS both finished with seven points but Garvey Maceo’s massive win meant they ended with a goal difference of +16 whereas STETHS, with a big win of their own, ended up with a goal difference of +11.

Edwin Allen, Christiana, Munro College, Vere Technical, STETHS and Frome, as second and third-placed finishers from the respective groups,  have all qualified for the Ben Francis Cup.

The final two qualifiers as well as the final DaCosta Cup semi-finalists will be determined after rescheduled Zone-4 games on Tuesday when Clarendon College play McGrath High and Manchester High and Cornwall College meet.

STGC, Central, Mona and Christiana to kick preseason preparations into high gear at Winchester Park

While the aim is to gauge the readiness of players, Neville "Bertis" Bell says the focus around the St George’s College Cup, is also to raise and nurture their aspirations and expectations for the upcoming schoolboy football season.

That he said, not only goes for his team, but for the other coaches who are using the invitational tournament, which started in 2011, as part of their preseason preparations to improve their chances of rural, urban and possibly, all-island supremacy later this year.

For this year's staging of the two-day event, host St George’s College will square off against Manning Cup semi-finalist Mona High, beaten daCosta Cup finalist, Central High, as well as Christiana High.

Action is scheduled to begin om Saturday at Winchester Park, with Central High opposing Christiana at 2:00pm, while Mona and St George’s will lock horns at 4:00pm.

On Sunday, Mona and Central High will do battle at 2:00pm, with St George’s and Christiana to meet in the 4:00pm feature contest.

"Interestingly, we have never repeated a team from the very first year until now...new teams every year. Central High are beaten daCosta Cup finalist, Christiana did well, Mona got to the semi-final last year and St George’s College were fifth overall. So the tournament is important for us and the other teams because it provides the opportunity for coaches to take a better look at players that they maybe not certain of and its close enough to the season to take it fairly seriously," Bell told SportsMax.tv.

"Maybe long ago coaches started to look at compositions of their teams, but tournament like these really gives us an opportunity to zoom in on some stuff because we are playing against quality teams, so it helps to gauge players readiness," he added.

All four teams are expected to walk away with something from the tournament, sponsored Derrimon Trading through their Refresh Water product.

The winner will pocket $100,000 and the runner-up $70,000, while the third and fourth-placed teams will receive $50,000 and $40,000 for their efforts respectively. 

St George's are defending champions, with Jamaica College, Wolmer's Boys and the National Under-17 team, among previous winners.

"We feel it is a tournament to look forward to, just a couple of games, but even if you don't win, you still come out with something to go towards your programme," Bell said.

"I don't know about the other teams, but we have a good crop, we retained about 14 or 15 players who played Manning Cup last year and six or seven of those are starters. So we are not in a bad position, but it's pre-season so we will have to wait and see how we perform," he ended.