Girls hockey final on today

By Robert Bailey, Star Writer

Excelsior and Papine High will meet in today's final of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association Jamaica Hockey Federation Girls' Under-19 competition at the Mona hockey field, starting at 4:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, Wolmer's and Munro College will contest Friday's boys' final, this after both teams recorded semi-final victories yesterday.

In the opening game, reigning champions Munro defeated Papine 1-0. Wolmer's booked their place after beating Jamaica College 3-2 on penalties after both teams had 0-0 draw at full and extra time.

Munro took the lead in the first minute of the game when Gerren Rowe ran on to a through pass from teammate Oshane Hasley to fire home a powerful 10-yard shot past goalkeeper Giovanni Green.

Ten minutes later, Hasley came close to scoring his team's second goal of the game, but with Green at his mercy, his shot went wide of the target.

Rowe thought he had scored his team's second on the stroke of half-time, but his long-range effort was well stopped by Green.

Five minutes after the half-time break, Charles Burton thought he had given Papine the equaliser but his clear shot on goal was spectacularly saved by Munro's custodian, Verely Reid, diving at full stretch to his right.

A few minutes later, Munro's Demali Morgan close-range effort was denied by the crossbar. Burton was set by teammate Carl Campbell in the dying moments of the game and after skipping by two Munro defenders, with an open goal to aim at, his shot went just wide of the target.

Fitzroy Rowe, coach of Munro, said he was pleased with his team's performance.

"We scored a goal in the first minute of the game and that was the difference between us and Papine," Rowe said.

"The game was a very good game, Papine came out playing but I am really glad that we were able to hang on to that one goal lead."

Andrea Hoo, coach of Papine said: "I think that the immaturity of some of the players may have cost us the game. But whenever you are relying on some of your better players to really perform on a day like this and they don't, it really hurts."