Beautiful brace puts STETHS through to quarter-final

A BRACE from Tobagonian Kaiem Lewis gave St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) a good 2-0 win over Kemps Hill in their top-of-the-table Group One round-of-16 match at the Wembley Centre of Excellence of Sports yesterday.

The win put STETHS on seven points and a place in the quarter-finals as group winners.

The teams came into the game with four points and in danger of missing out on the next round.

The first half featured a back and forth with both teams trying to score what proved to be an elusive early goal.

Heavy wind made playing difficult and good defending from the STETHS trio of Jade Lynch, Dainty Hewitt, and Nagey Brown kept Kemp Hils at bay.

STETHS were purposeful in the second half with Lewis scoring his first of two goals with the half just two minutes old.

Controlling a ball just outside the 18-yard box, he sent a curling shot to beat the goalkeeper and give his team the lead.

Kemps Hill, through Eric Morgan, Junior Robinson, and Robert Donaldson, tried hard to get their team on even terms, but the STETHS trio of Lynch, Hewitt, and Brown weren’t in the mood to give anything.

As the game progressed, STETHS became more dominant, with Jordan Blake and Henry Johnson tormenting the Kemps Hill defence.

Still, there were no goals until the 70th minute when Lewis scored another curler from 30 yards.

Winning coach Omar ‘Rambo’ Wedderburn was elated with his team’s win.

“We came here on a mission today, as it was PPW – Play, Performance, Win. The first half, the team did not settle well due to the condition of the field which was a bit heavy,” he said.

“We had our spells and we took advantage of that in the match.”

Asked if his team is peaking at the right time after a slow start earlier, Wedderburn’s response suggested that was the natural way to go about tournaments.

“It is a competition, it is not a 100-metre race, so we have to play all the way through the competition. Every game, we play hard and it has been a while since we have not advanced to the quarter-final stage and we are humble and taking things in stride and we are looking forward to the other games coming up”, he said.

Losing coach of Kemps Hill, Keegan Mitchell, whose team failed to advance to the quarter-finals after finishing third in the group, blamed poor officiating for his team’s loss.

“It is a sad feeling in losing today but bad officiating took the game away from us. However, it has been a good season for the team and we are looking forward to the Ben Francis Cup,” said Mitchell.

Garvey Maceo are the other team through after they dismissed Alphansus Davis 4-0 to end on five points.