Clarendon College cool Little London

Reynaldo Richardson struck twice to lead title contenders Clarendon College to a hard-fought 3-0 victory over the well-drilled Little London High in the ISSA/Flow daCosta Cup quarter-final yesterday in the feature match of a double-header at the Frome Sports Ground.

Petersfield edged Fair Prospect 2-1 in the first game, to give themselves a shot at advancing to the next round from Zone R, which is being led by defending champions St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS).

The champions roughed up Vere Tech 4-1 in Santa Cruz to underline their intent and are clearly now rounding into the kind of form coach Omar Wedderburn mentioned after their last game.

It took the Clarendon aggregation 56 minutes to break what was up until then, a wonderful spectacle of attacking football, when Richardson fired in a torrid shot from an angle for the 1-0 lead.

Richardson scored the second three minutes later, this time as a Creggton Charleton free-kick was headed back across the goal and the forward made no mistake from inside the six-yard area, to make the score 2-0.

FREE-KICK GOAL

Clive Jarrett hit Clarendon's third off another Charleton free kick in the 86th minute with a simple finish, after the Little London goalie Clifford Clarke had the ball bounced off his right leg.

The Zone S clash, began with Little London playing at a high tempo and looked the smarter of the two in the opening exchanges.

But they could not sustain the high velocity, and Clarendon slowly began taking a hold of proceedings, through Charleton and Shande James in the midfield.

Coach Paul 'Tegat' Davis made a slight adjustment at the start of the second half, and it paid rich dividends with Richardson opening the scoring. From there, it was practically all Clarendon.

Little London's bravery was broken and they succumbed to their second loss of the season.

"This was a game in which our experience showed, primarily in the second half," said coach Davis.

"Little London came at us hard in the first, but we buckled down to play some good football. It was a really competitive game, but I am happy to have won with just one more game in this round and the semi-final on the horizon," noted Davis.

Elsewhere, Cornwall College continued their steamrolling express with a difficult 2-1 win over Ocho Rios, thanks to yet another two-goal burst from leading scorer Jourdaine Fletcher to join Manchester High on 6 points in Zone P. Manchester defeated Glenmuir 2-1.

Dinthill returned to winning ways, outplaying Rusea's 3-1 in Zone Q to be on 3 points, and stay second in the zone behind Lennon High (6 points).

Lennon had earlier in the day tagged Paul Bogle 1-0 to hold prime position heading into a semi-final berth.

Yesterday's results

STETHS 4, Vere Tech 1

Ocho Rios 1, Cornwall College 2

Manchester 2, Glenmuir 1

Steer Town 3, Spot Valley 0

Dinthill 3, Rusea's 1

Clarendon College 3, Little London 0

Petersfield 2, Fair Prospect 1

Lennon High 1, Paul Bogle 0