Mills hat-trick inspires big Dinthill win

Western Bureau:

A GARY Mills hat-trick led Dinthill Technical High School to a commanding 3-0 win over William Knibb Memorial High School in their Inter-Secondary Schools’ Sports Association (ISSA)/Digicel daCosta Cup group quarter-finals football match at Manchester High School yesterday.

Mills, who played in the Jamaica Premier League with Mount Pleasant Football Academy, took his tally to four for the season, after getting his first goal last Saturday.

The player noted that he is happy to be getting the goals at the right time and is looking forward to continuing.

“I’ve been waiting on this opportunity to score some goals, so I just made use of it to give my team the win. I have been telling my teammates that this (quarter-final round) is the time to score. It’s a very good feeling to score in these important games,” Mills said.

Asked about a goal-target, Mills replied: “No, I don’t have any target. My objective is for my team to win the competition and I want to help make that possible by scoring goals.”

PRESSURE

It was one-way traffic from the start of the game and Dinthill Technical’s efforts bore fruit early, as Mills gave Dinthill the lead with a 17th-minute strike. They continued to put William Knibb under pressure as the Trelawny school’s custodian was called upon to make a few saves and kept Dinthill to a slender 1-0 margin at the break.

Ten minutes into the second half, William Knibb’s belief of turning things in their favour quickly turned to despair, as they were reduced to 10 players when Tajay Cooper was shown his second yellow card at the 55th minute.

Four minutes later they sank deeper into trouble when Mills netted his second. Then at the 66th minute, Mills completed his hat-trick.

Coach of Dinthill Technical, O’Neil Thomas, was happy with his centre forward’s scoring form.

“The interesting thing about goalscoring is he wasn’t scoring, he got one last week and now three today. That means he is improving and I hope that he continues. He is scoring at the right time which is good because we’ve created a lot of chances in all our games, so we need someone to finish them,” Thomas observed.

Continuing, he said: “I think it was a good performance, although the field restricted our usual passing game. So far we are in a good position but we still have a game to go and Edwin Allen also have six points,” he added.

While disappointed with the result, the coach of William Knibb, Dwight Jeremiah, said they are focused on extending their season beyond Friday. He hopes to finish third in the group to get a chance at the Ben Francis Cup KO competition.

BETTER TEAM

“I must still give credit to the boys because I don’t think it was a game where we were totally (outplayed for) 3-0. Dinthill were the better team. The game is the best teacher. Hopefully, our guys learnt from it and will come back stronger,” Jeremiah said.

“We are still in contention for the Ben Francis Cup if we beat Christiana on Friday,” he added.

In the second game at the same venue, Edwin Allen High crushed Christiana 4-0 to set up Friday’s decider. Dinthill and Edwin Allen have six points and only the group winner will advance to the semi-finals.