‘Group of death’ doesn’t scare Reynolds and Manchester High

Vassell Reynolds, coach of Manchester High School, said they are very optimistic about advancing to the semi-finals of the ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup from what he described as the quarter-finals 'group of death'.

He is looking forward to maximizing on the point from today's match where they will travel to the STETHS Sports Complex to battle B. B Coke High School. The other match in Group 2 will see Cornwall College take on Garvey Maceo at the Juici Patties field in Clarendon.

"One would want to be very optimistic going into this first quarter-finals game against Maggotty and we are looking for nothing less than three points. I'm sure that they also will believe they are starting on level pegging and would want to also maximize their first game," Reynolds said.

"We understand that the Maggotty team came second in what was the toughest group in the first round, so we don't expect the game to be easy. However, we are very optimistic and hoping that our boys put their best foot forward for us to come out with three points," he added.

"On paper, this is the zone of death with two perennial top 16 teams in Cornwall College and Garvey Maceo," said Reynolds. "As we have been doing from the preliminary round we are taking each game at a time but we are very optimistic. This team was prepared to peak at the right time which is about now. If we are to go by the last match, there were pretty good signs of what we want to see."

9-0 aggregate

Manchester who are coming off the back of a 9-0 aggregate win over St. Thomas High in the second round, has a history of making it to this level of the competition but not going all the way. However, Reynolds is expected to be that X factor in getting them over the line.

"We are trying to get them to that place of developing an understanding to perform at this stage of the competition. I myself would have been involved at this stage a lot both at the daCosta and Manning Cup levels. I have tried to pass on my experience to the set-up and I think the guys have been responding very well. And I hope they will continue to improve as the competition goes on," Reynolds said.