MANDEVILLE, Manchester — St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) remain on course for a sixth successive hold on the ISSA/Flow Ben Francis Knockout title following a thrilling penalty shoot-out victory over Dinthill Technical in yesterday’s semi-final at Manchester High.

The teams had battled to a 2-2 draw in a dramatic late surge in full and extra-time, before STETHS held their nerves to clinch the sudden death shoot-out 7-6.

They will meet now meet Manchester High, who clipped Lennon High 2-1 on Monday, in Friday’s final.

“This was a battle between two of the best attacking teams in schoolboy football, so we came here today with the mentality to win any way possible,” said STETHS coach Omar Wedderburn.

“Dinthill took the lead twice but we weren’t worried because we had conditioned our minds to go the extra mile if necessary. So we just kept our composure and equalised each time.”

Despite having two best rural area strikers on display, the game only came alive in the 86th minute when second-half substitute Jahmani Ranger opened the scoring for Dinthill with a low strike.

But given his first sniff at goal, the prolific Michael Kerr tapped in a stoppage-time equaliser for STETHS to send the match into extra-time.

And just five minutes into extra-time, Kerr’s golden boot rival Rodave Murray rolled in a well-taken penalty to restore Dinthill’s advantage.

Yet STETHS never seemed daunted and duly notched a second equaliser when Travar McCulloch beat Dinthill’s George Brown with a beautiful long-ranged shot.

The defending champions fell behind again in the shootout, McCulloch missing their first penalty. But this time they would steady their nerves, scoring their next seven spot kicks to advance to the final, after Murray and Anton Rhule had missed theirs for Dinthill.

Wedderburn called their display “a championship performance”. “Not in the sense of winning the title today,” he said. “But what we did here will only give us more confidence to successfully defend our title.”

And looking forward to their date with Manchester High, whom they have beaten in three schoolboy finals in the last six years, he said: “It is not going to be an easy game, because you know there is a big rivalry between the two teams. But we want to defend our title so we are prepared to go out there and play hard.”