AFTER leading St Catherine High to their first-ever ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup final, Head Coach Anthony Patrick says he always believed the school would reach the pinnacle of schoolboy football.

St Catherine got the better of many-time champions Jamaica College 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw at the end of regulation time at the National Stadium yesterday. JC’s Nashordo Gibbs’ 40th-minute goal would ultimately send the game to the spot after he cancelled out St Catherine Captain Romaine Walters’ penalty in the 12th minute.

Both teams converted their first three penalties but after St Catherine converted their fourth, JC’s Jahmarly Bennett failed to keep his nerve as his effort came crashing off the crossbar. Kadean Young made no mistake, however, as he sent St Catherine into the coveted final.

Patrick says advancing on penalties was always the plan.

“I kept saying to the youngsters, ‘The time is now,’ “ he told the Jamaica Observer. “There’s nothing else to keep or save back — we just have to give it our all and dig deep. I said to them to carry the game as long as possible, and once we carry it to the penalty shoot-out it will be curtains for them.”

Patrick, who won two Manning Cup titles with Bridgeport in the early 2000s, led St Catherine to their first set of titles when he won back-to-back Walker Cups in 2019 and 2021.

He says taking the school closer to the big prize has always been on the cards, and is optimistic they can take it home in Saturday’s final.

“I must say thumbs up to my management staff,” he said. “They really believed in me, and I kept believing in the players — and that’s important. Once we believed in each other it would feed into what we do, and that’s very important.

“This is what I wanted. I always keep saying that I want to win it for the school that’s named after the parish. As a coach that won it twice in the parish, it would be very important and a great feeling for me to win it for St Catherine.”

JC Head Coach Davion Ferguson says his team deserved more, after wasting a number of opportunities throughout the game.

“We knew we had to win this in normal time but if you don’t score your chances, you don’t win the game,” he reasoned. “At the latter part of the first half we missed an open goal and I was saying to myself, ‘Is this one of those days?’ And that happened for us — but such is the nature of the game,” he said. After losing in the Champions Cup final against Glenmuir on Saturday, JC will finish the season without a title for the first time since 2021.

Ferguson says they will have to move on and come back stronger in 2025.

“We’re disappointed,” he said. “At one stage of the season we were poised for history, and that game in Montego Bay against McGrath really catapulted our season in a different direction. But, such is the nature of the game You win some, you lose some.

“They’re disappointed, and rightfully so. We just now go about picking up the pieces, try to assess where we are, and make some decisions going forward.”

The final is set for the National Stadium on Friday at 6:15 pm.