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Denbigh High is still in a celebratory mood following the school's recent success in the ISSA Under-19 hockey competition, where the girls were crowned champions and the boys secured third place.

In the female finals, Denbigh came out 2-1 winners on penalties over defending champions Immaculate Conception High School after both teams ended 1-1 at full time. In the boys' third-place playoff, the Clarendon team easily got by defending champions Jamaica College 2-0.

Denbigh also walked away with several individual honours. Jason Channer, with 10 goals, was joint top scorer and male MVP, while Nishauna Forshaw was named female MVP.

Coach of the Denbigh team, Richard Piper, was very pleased with the achievements of both teams -- especially the females, who were winning their second title in three years.

Piper is hoping that the win will help to heighten interest in the sport at the institution.

"Hockey is not popular at the school or in the rural area, but I'm hoping the performances by both teams will help to encourage the students to show a lot of interest going forward," continued Piper.

"It is a great feeling to win our second title in three years, and despite the boys not winning, I think they have improved tremendously over the past two seasons," said Piper, a past student and former player of the Denbigh male team.

Going up against the defending champions in the finals, Piper said she was very confident of winning, despite being beaten earlier in the season by the same opponent.

"I was extremely confident that we would have beaten Immaculate because when we played them earlier and lost, we outplayed them, but a lack of scoring let us down. We went back and worked on our endurance," said Piper, who was in his first year at the helm after being assistant coach for two years.

sports@gleanerjm.com