TRIPLE CHAMPIONS CORNWALL College and Corporate Area double winners Bridgeport Comprehensive started their respective defence of schoolboy football's daCosta and Manning Cups in style at Jarrett Park on Saturday with victories in the season's opening games.

Cornwall College started their quest to be the first school to win the daCosta Cup three straight times since Vere Technical in the early 1970s, with a 2-0 win over arch-rivals Herbert Morrison Technical, while Manning Cup champions Bridgeport came from behind to dismiss Campion College 3-1 as national Under 20 striker Kemar Petrekin bagged a hat-trick.

Neither champions were convincing, however, and it took special efforts from seasoned players to give them the full points.

Petrekin's hat-trick, through goals in the 41st, 84th and 88th minutes, came after Campion's central defender Kamal Fletcher had given his team an unlikely lead. Fletcher had arrived in the island only hours before the game from his summer vacation in Atlanta, USA, but was in the right place in the 24th minute to give his team the lead.

Petrekin's strike partner Dean Thompson missed a spate of chances and the win margin would have been much wider had the St. Catherine team converted even a third of their chances.

Campion, while not expected to contend for any silverware this season, showed some spunk for at least the first 60 minutes until the humid conditions and their lack of physical fitness started to take toll and they wilted.

Petrekin, last season's top scorer in the Manning Cup, was allowed to waltz into the Campion area and it seemed only a matter of time before he would break the 1-1 half-time deadlock. After missing with a header in the 77th he scored twice in the space of four minutes near the end of the game.

Campion's coach Robert Mowatt was not too upset at his team's loss and told STAR Sports that he was hoping to get maximum points from his next two games, tomorrow against Meadowbrook and Friday against Camperdown.

Cornwall, which lost nine starters from last year's team, got both goals from the two remaining players, captain Dane Richards and Kirkland Smith, both in the second half.

Smith set up Richards' goal 19 minutes into the half when he dribbled deep into the Herbert Morrison area and passed to a streaking Richards on the right. The diminutive midfielder, who returned to the island earlier last week from a two-match tour of England with the national senior team, picked his spot nicely and fired past the advancing Marlon Brown in goal.

Smith sealed all three points four minutes before the end with a brilliant free-kick that sailed over the wall and bisected Brown and his near right hand post.

Published in theStar on September 10, 2002