MONTEGO BAY, St James — Having achieved their first goal of getting to the semi-finals of the Inter-Secondary Schols Sports Association (ISSA)/Wata daCosta Cup football competition, Cornwall College will now turn their attention to the December 1 final as they seek to add to their 12 trophies.

On Tuesday, Cornwall College completed a perfect three win record in Group Four of the quarter-finals, the so called ‘Group of Death’, with a 1-0 win over Glenmuir High at Jarrett Park to join the three other group winners in the semi-finals set for November 15.

Cornwall College will play former champions Frome Technical in one semi-final, while Clarendon College, the only team left in schoolboy football with a 100 per cent win record, will face Dinthill Technical in the other semi-final.

“This round was a very tough one,” Dr Dean Weatherly, head coach of Cornwall College, told the Jamaica Observer after their victory over Glenmuir. “So even though the boys appeared flat today, it’s very hard to play three high-intensity games back to back to back.”

Cornwall travelled for their first two games, to Bramwell Clarke Complex in Ewarton to face the high-riding Charlemont High last Tuesday, winning 3-1, then to St Elizabeth Technical on Saturday to face then unbeaten Garvey Maceo High, who had won their first 13 games impressively while conceding just two goals in the process. They were beaten 3-2.

“We had that first game against a team that was playing very well, then that very exciting game against Garvey Maceo and then today,” he explained. “The players were going to be a bit down in terms of their energies. The game was lacklustre but we did what was necessary and I am proud of how they performed.”

Aiden Jokomba, who was part of the team that won the daCosta Cup in 2016 and also made it to the then Super Cup final, carried the team through the second round and the first game of the quarter-final, scoring six goals. But after attracting double and at times triple-team marking from defenders, Solano Birch and to an extent Matthew Thorpe took up scoring duties with goals in the last two games.

Dr Weatherly said having got to the top four, they knew the hard work was ahead of them. “As we said from the start of the competition, the first goal was to get to the semi-finals and from there now the next goal is to get to the final.”

A hard-running, gutsy Frome Technical team stands in their way to the final, however, and Dr Weatherly said it was time to start planning. “I have not seen them, but we have to go do our homework and prepare for them when that time comes.”

Before the semi-finals of the daCosta Cup, however, there is the ISSA Champions Cup all-island knockout that starts tomorrow. Asked whether that would break their rhythm, Dr Weatherly said, “not at all, we take each game one step at a time. Whoever we draw we will be ready and we will be playing each game to the best of our abilities.”