Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter

Harbour View's Lennox Wright (centre) beats Sporting Central's Ian Palmer to the ball in the Digicel Premier League at the Harbour View Mini Stadium yesterday. Wright scored the first goal in a 2-0 win for The Stars of the East. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Harbour View kept their lead at the top of the Digicel Premier League (DPL) when they coasted to a 2-0 win over Sporting Central Academy at the Harbour View Mini Stadium yesterday.

In a slow-paced affair, the Stars of the East took the lead through an unlikely source, defender Lennox Wright, who headed them in front in the 49th minute.

Wright barged in ahead of a sleeping Sporting Central defensive unit and beat goalkeeper Erron Brown to the ball after Dicoy Williams had kept the set play alive with a key touch in the area.

With Sporting offering very little as an organised offensive entity, despite their wastefulness in front of goal, Harbour View were always favoured to extend their lead and they did so six minutes to full time. This time it was an attacker, Jomo Gordon, who controlled the ball in the area, wrong footed his marker and fired past Brown from a tough angle to the left of goal.

"I think we started the first half a bit flat but at half-time we asked them to pick up the pace a bit and from then on it was all Harbour View," said Donovan Hayles, assistant coach of the winning team.

"We scored a couple of goals today, I think we could have got a few more, so we still have a lot of work to do on our finishing," he added.

Careless giveaway

The Stars of the East could well have found themselves with a couple more goals. After 30 minutes of play, a careless giveaway be defender Terry Alves gifted Harbour View with a three-on-one opportunity from which midfielder Jermaine Hue broke free to goal. However, facing an exposed Brown, the player booted his shot just wide of the target.

A good 59th-minute build-up in the middle of the park saw Keith Kelly release forward Kavin Bryan down the right flank, but when the striker cut the ball back across goal, Kelly, standing unmarked 10 yards out, sliced wide of the target.

Promising start

Sporting for their part, had got off to a promising start and perhaps saw their best opportunity of the game fall to Hughan Gray in the fifth minute. Gray collected a picture-perfect pass from Christopher Banner that bisected the Harbour View backline, but he was too casual in his finish as his shot from just inside the area was curled into the arms of Harbour View goalkeeper Dwayne Miller.

"We are a bit depleted and I think that is what hurt us more than anything else today," said Sporting's coach Christopher Dawes.

"We are a young team, we will bounce back. All the players have to do is stay focused," he added.