Despite back-to-back losses that threaten to derail their once-promising season, Cornwall College’s coach Dr Dean Weatherly says the team is not giving up on their hopes of winning the daCosta Cup, the traditional symbol of rural area schoolboy football supremacy.

Cornwall College, who up to last week were unbeaten through 19 games all season, crashed to successive 1-0 defeats in a four-day span, losing to Wolmer’s Boys’ in the final of the FLOW Super Cup at Sabina Park on Saturday and then to Lennon High in the semi-finals of the Ben Francis Knockout at St Elizabeth Technical High (STETHS) on Tuesday.

However, for Dr Weatherly they have “come too far to stop” and his response to the Jamaica Observer West on Tuesday was “no retreat, no surrender”.

“We still have a lot to play for and the daCosta Cup was always our primary objective at the start of the season and we are still in contention,” he reasoned.

After playing 11 games in just under a month since the start of the Inter-zone round of the daCosta Cup, and two trips to Kingston for the semis and finals of the Super Cup, the Cornwall College players will get a well-needed one-week break before meeting Clarendon College next Friday in the semi-finals of the daCosta Cup, again at STETHS.

On Tuesday, Dr Weatherly admitted the gruelling schedule of games and travel had caught up with his team.

“The travelling has gotten the better of us finally. The players were lethargic today [Tuesday] and were not moving as fluid as we usually do, and so we just had to try and get the best out of them,” he said.

Dr Weatherly added that the team was “too laid back today, we were not attacking the ball in the 18-yard box and lacked the killer instinct we had become known for this season”.

Cornwall had beaten Clarendon College 4-2 in the semi-finals of the FLOW Super Cup two weekends ago and since then Clarendon College lost their following two games, upstaged by Spot Valley High in a daCosta Cup quarter-final game last week Wednesday and beaten 4-3 in sudden death penalties by STETHS on Monday, after they had played out a 2-2 draw in regulation and then ended 3-3 after extra-time at Manchester High.

On Tuesday, after dodging some early scares, a flat-looking Cornwall College wasted the few chances they created and were held scoreless for the second game in a row after scoring 65 goals in their previous games, the best by any team in the country this season.

A penalty conversion by Lennon’s captain Fitzroy Cummings was the difference as both teams conspired to miss several scoring chances.

The spot kick was awarded after Lennon’s Kwesi Watts was tripped just inside the area, but Jamario Hines in the Cornwall goal saved Cummings’ initial shot. However, the big Lennon High defender reacted first and swept the ball home before any Cornwall defender could get to the ball.

Cornwall had their best chance to level the score in the 76th minute, but Lennon High’s goalkeeper Tyrone Mullings pulled off a brilliant save, pushing a header from Michael Heaven to a corner.