KC seek to ‘salvage pride’ by winning Walker Cup

Having been knocked out of the Manning Cup competition, Kingston College (KC) head coach Vassell Reynolds says his team is now fully focused on salvaging some pride by going all out for the Walker Cup knockout title.

KC, who won the Manning Cup last year, were listed among the favourites to retain their crown this season. However, they were eliminated on Wednesday after being held to a 2-2 draw by archrivals Calabar High in Group Two.

The result left them third in the group on four points, falling short of a quarter-final spot. Calabar and Hydel advanced with five points each, while Campion finished bottom on one point.

Reynolds said that with KC having not lifted the Walker Cup since 2016, the team is determined to finish the season with silverware.

"We have to take it seriously because I believe that, as coach, a cup is a cup," said Reynolds. "Albeit your major aim is the big prize, which is the Manning Cup, and then Olivier Shield, which is not going to happen every year.

"But the fact of the matter is that we would have lost seven or eight of our regular starters from last year, so having a team to be able to compete this way and to be able to view as one of the favourites speaks volumes of the programme that we have at Kingston College," he said.

Reynolds noted that the North Street-based institution has not won the Walker Cup knockout competition in almost a decade, and now that they have a chance to end that drought, they will be going all out for the title.

"We just have to use the Walker Cup, which KC have not won since 2016, to motivate ourselves to try and win that to salvage some pride for the season," he remarked.

"We are taking it very seriously and will be doing our best to ensure that we win this competition. But we know that it is not going to be very easy, and so we just have to put our best foot forward."

Reynolds also highlighted that they only have themselves to blame for their failure to advance to the quarter-finals of the Manning Cup, noting that they should have won their opening game against Hydel, which they lost 1-0.

"I don't think that the game against Calabar was the pivotal game that dropped us out of the league, because when we look back at it, we lost against Hydel, which we should have won easily based on the number of chances that we created, and so that was the deciding factor for us."