Edwards’ strike hands Mount Pleasant 1-0 win

Caribbean Cup winners Mount Pleasant Academy maintained their impressive form by edging Montego Bay United (MBU) 1-0 in yesterday’s Jamaica Premier League match at Jarrett Park in Montego Bay.

In a highly anticipated match, Mount Pleasant’s Raheem Edwards scored the winning goal in the 47th minute. The result leaves MBU in second on 26 points, the same as Racing United. Racing, however, have a superior goal difference. Mount Pleasant also remain in fourth with 22 points from 11 games.

Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore, head coach of Mount Pleasant, said it is important to continue working hard and focus on achieving the team’s objectives.

“It is very important that we climb the standings. We have a couple of games in hand, and after playing more games we should be up where we want to be, either first or second. We just have to keep working and climbing,” said Whitmore, who added that the team has to take it game by game.

“The guys are up for the task, so we have to keep pushing to get the desired results,” the Mount Pleasant head coach said.

Meanwhile, Xavier Gilbert, head coach of MBU, said despite the challenges the performance was better that their previous match, when they lost 1-0 to Waterhouse.

“We have to get better, but it is a better performance than last week. I thought we had some good looks in the second half, as we created some opportunities but fell asleep earlier in the half,” said Gilbert. “We did enough, could and should have gotten something out of the game. But these are the Caribbean Cup champions, so we know it wasn’t going to be easy.”

While Mount Pleasant were deserving winners, MBU failed to capitalise on their chances.

In the first half, the game was evenly balanced and ended 0-0. It wasn’t until the second half that the fireworks began. Edwards controlled the ball on his thigh from a beautiful pass delivered by Warner Brown. He then made a 360-degree turn and fired home two minutes into the second half.

MBU’s Brian Brown almost had an immediate impact after coming on as a substitute, but the home team was kept out by some stout defending from the Mount Pleasant defenders, who worked very hard to keep their clean sheet.