CATHERINE HALL, St James — Despite going down to 10 men after just 14 minutes, Clarendon College showed grit to match their style and beat Cornwall College 2-1 in the final of the ISSA/Wata daCosta Cup on Saturday at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.

The scales appeared to have tipped in Cornwall College’s favour in the 14th minute after goalkeeper Tafari Chambers was sent off for deliberately handling the ball but his stand-in Alston Corke overcame early jitters to anchor his team to their eighth title and first since 2014.

The victory ensured a perfect win record for Clarendon College in the all-rural daCosta Cup in 2018, the third such in the last 10 years after Rusea’s High in 2011 and Cornwall College in 2016.

For the new champions the win went a far way to erasing the pain of last year’s loss when they led Rusea’s High 1-0 at half-time but gave up two second half goals.

Lenworth Hyde, who was a star of the legendary all-conquering 1977 Clarendon College team coached by the late Winston Chung-Fah was winning his first daCosta Cup title as coach.

“I did not panic when the keeper got the red card,” Hyde told Jamaica Observer Central, “I was calm and I just told them to be calm, we can still win this.”

Clarendon dominated the game for long periods and goals from National Under-20 players Nique Daley and Lamar Walker took them to a memorable victory.

Clarendon were staring down the barrel when goalkeeper Chambers was given a straight red card after he left his line in the14th minute in an attempt to stop a counter-attack led by Aiden Jokomba. He was ruled to have handled the ball by referee Oshane Nation.

Replacement Corke got off to a shaky start and almost caused a goal in the 35th minute when he mis-controlled a back pass from a teammate but he recovered fast enough to avert danger.

National under 20 representative Ricardo McIntosh had a chance to give his team the lead in the 41st minute but with just the Cornwall goalkeeper Peter Sinclair to beat, he powered it off the intersection of the cross-bar and the right post.

Despite being a man short, Clarendon started more assertive in the second half and were rewarded when Daley finally broke away from markers inside the 18-yard box and beat Sinclair high to his right in the 53rd minute.

Cornwall clawed their way back into the game when Sanjay Williams looped one past Corke at his near left post in the 64th minute.

But Clarendon retook the lead in the 86th minute when Walker got his head to a corner from the right side beating Sinclair from close range.