THE rural area double safely tucked away in the principal’s offices in Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) will go after their first ever treble when they take on ISSA/LIME Manning Cup champions Jamaica College in the Olivier Shield starting tomorrow at the Constant Spring playing field.

On Saturday STETHS beat Garvey Maceo 4-1 in the finals of the ISSA/LIME daCosta Cup at the Montego Bay Sports Complex to win their first-ever rural area double after winning the Ben Francis KO earlier.

Two goals in the first seven minutes from the in-form Jovan James, one from Khesanio Hall and another in time added on from Keano Williams gave STETHS their fourth hold on the daCosta Cup after wins in 1974, 1999 and 2009.

Milton Green had made it 2-1 at one stage for Garvey Maceo but the team finished the game with just nine players on the field, as Henrico Ricketts was shown a red card in the 39th minute for deliberately handling the ball in his own area and Tashane Campbell was stretchered off the field after they had already made all three changes.

STETHS became the eighth school to win the daCosta Cup/Ben Francis KO double and it was the 14th time the feat was being achieved.

The five goals that were scored represented the highest scoring daCosta Cup finals since 2000 when Cornwall College beat Munro College 4-0 at Jarrett Park and was capped by STETHS coach Omar Wedderburn standing atop the team dug-out with his arms spread wide as the final minutes ticked away.

STETHS had come up short in the last two finals, losing in 2001 to Rusea’s high and last year to Glenmuir High, both by agonising 1-0 margins and yesterday’s flood of goals demonstrated the team’s bursting free from the frustrations of the last two years.

The moment was marred, however, as for the second straight week in an ISSA schoolboys’ final, a large crowd of fans celebrating prematurely invaded the field forcing a three-minute delay at the end of the game.

After the game Wedderburn was in no doubt why his team won “as I have said all season, common horse can’t win derby; this year we came in with a championships mentality and that is what you saw today”.

Wedderburn told reporters afterwards that his team came to play on the day and their quality was what took them home to the victory.

A disappointed Alexander Morgan, one of the assistant coaches on the Garvey Maceo sideline who took over the duties in the second-half form Lenworth Gordon, told teenAGE that there was “indiscipline on the part of the players as we knew that STETHS would bring to the game the diagonal passes and we knew what to do to counter that”.

He admitted, however, that “some nervousness” at the start might have led to them going behind so early in the game.