3 months ago
22
NIGEL SIMON
Senior Multimedia Reporter
The T&T girls’ under-14 national team and the T&T High Performance (HP) girls’ under-14 squad both ended in the cellar spots of their respective groups in Tier I when the round-robin stage of the Caribbean Football Union’s Girls U-14 Challenge Series ended yesterday.
Beaten in their first two matches by Aruba (1-0) and Bermuda (2-0), the T&T under-14 girls fell to Jamaica 3-1 to end without a point in Group A at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, on Sunday night in Group B to end their hopes of reaching the semifinals.
The Jamaicans took a deserved lead in the 13th minute when Shennel Walters laid off a pass for teammate Alaycia Dunn to fire home off the left hand of goalkeeper Kathony Benjamin.
However, five minutes later, with the rain pouring down, T&T got back on level terms. Jamaica goalkeeper Mikalia Banton failed to collect a left-sided cross from Anya London, and Gloria Henry was on the spot to stab home the loose ball into an open net.
But, a minute before the half-time interval, Walters restored the lead for Jamaica when she capped off a bit of individual brilliance at the top of the T&T 18-yard box by beating Benjamin low to her right.
In the second half, Jamaica again dominated the flow of play, and in the final minute of play, Tianna Grant added a third from about 35 yards when a right-footed long-range free kick was misjudged by substitute goalkeeper Akeila Marryshow for a 3-1 scoreline, and with it, any hopes of a T&T comeback.
With the win, the Jamaicans, who won their first two matches by 1-0 margins, ended with a maximum of nine points, while Bermuda finished ahead of Aruba on goal difference after both teams ended with four points following a goalless draw in their encounter yesterday.
In Group A, the T&T High Performance girls, beaten heavily by the Dominican Republic 9-0 and Puerto Rico 8-0, suffered another lopsided loss, 5-0 against Martinique at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar, in a clash of winless teams, while the Dominican Republic ended top of the four-team pool with a maximum of nine points after blanking Puerto Rico 3-0 in the top-of-the-table clash at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva, yesterday.
In the Tier I semifinals, Jamaica will meet Puerto Rico while the Dominican Republic faces Bermuda, with the winner to meet in the final on Sunday, August 24.
Third-place pool finishers, Martinique and Aruba, will play in a one-off playoff match against each other to determine the fifth and sixth spots, while the fourth-place finishers, T&T and T&T High Performance, will also play one playoff match against each other to determine the seventh and eighth spots, respectively.
Yesterday’s Challenge Series results
Tier I
Group A
Martinique 5 vs T&T HP 0
Dominican Republic 3 vs Puerto Rico 0
Group B
Aruba 0 vs Bermuda 0
Jamaica 3 (Alaycia Dunn 13th, Shennel Walters 34th, Tianna Grant 69th) vs T&T 1 (Gloria Henry 18th)
Tier II
Group A
Dominica 4 vs US Virgin Islands 1
St Kitts & Nevis 2 vs Bonaire 0
Group B
Suriname 3 vs British Virgin Islands 2
French Guiana 5 vs Barbados 0
Group C
Antigua & Barbuda 3 vs Turks & Caicos Islands 2
Guyana 0 vs Cayman Islands 0
English (US) ·