HOLY Trinity sealed their place in the semi-finals of the 2017 ISSA/FLOW Manning Cup with a 2-0 win over spirited St Catherine High at Winchester Park yesterday.

The all-important goals were scored by Shai Smith and Nicholas Thomas in the 20th and 39th minutes, respectively.

Smith increased his goal tally for the season to 12 goals, while Thomas inched up to eight goals for the season. Holy Trinity have thus set a date with defending champions Jamaica College in the semi-finals while KC will meet the winner of the game between STGC and STATHS.

Both teams were reduced to 10 players in the 48th minute, as Captain Omario Cole of Holy Trinity and Tevaun Taylor of St Catherine were ejected by the referee for violent conduct.

Holy Trinity’s Coach Devon Anderson said he was happy for the win as the players played to the game plan and executed well.

“I told the players before the match to relax and play, but they wasted too many chances they created, as they should have won by more goals,” Anderson said.

He noted that Smith really played well, which inspired the team and helped them to perform well. “The win was another step as the work is still in progress.”

Losing coach Anthony Patrick said the players did extremely well as it was an uphill task for the team. “Nobody expected St Catherine to have reached this far. We will now be looking out for the knockout competition.

“We will be building on this year’s performance for next season as we will have several of these players still in the line-up and hope to get some new players,” Patrick said.

Meanwhile, Holy Trinity dominated the first half with some good attacking combinations that had St Catherine on the defence. Smith, Thomas, Phillon Lawrence, Dillon McEnnis, Dante Green and Omarie Cole produced a number of dangerous attacking plays, but St Catherine goalkeeper Raheem Henry responded bravely.

From one of these numerous attacks, the ball was played nicely inside by Cole to the unmarked Smith who placed the ball into the far corner past a diving Henry.

Holy Trinity went 2-0 up through Thomas, who capitalised on goalkeeper Henry’s inability to cleanly accept a free kick taken from outside the penalty box by Smith.

St Catherine played much better in the second half as they pushed Holy Trinity on the defensive and went in search of goals, but it was just not meant to be.