Cuba edges T&T girls for U-14 crown

With the win, Cu­ba end­ed with a max­i­mum of nine points from three match­es af­ter record­ing vic­to­ries over Suri­name and Grena­da by sim­i­lar 7-0 mar­gins while T&T end­ed sec­ond with six points. The host na­tion whipped Grena­da 10-0 and blanked Suri­name 3-0 in their first two match­es.

T&T start­ed the bet­ter of both teams in Tues­day's fi­nal round-match and took the lead in the eighth minute through Caris­sa Cow­an, who ear­li­er hit the left post from an acute an­gle off a pass from a throw-in by team-mate Twin­kle Thomas in the fourth minute.

Cu­ba then cre­at­ed a few ner­vous mo­ments for the T&T de­fence from long balls in­to the 18-yard box and it was from one of the set plays by left-foot­ed Cinthia Aguil­era, the lo­cals failed to clear and the ball fell straight at the feet of Dalia Baez who ri­fled home a right-foot­er through a crowd of play­ers and past goal­keep­er Mikaela Year­wood to even the score at 1-1 four min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val. Each match was a du­ra­tion of 70 min­utes (35 x 35).

Sev­en min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half, Keila Her­nan­dez put Cu­ba ahead for good, when her left-foot­ed ef­fort from some way out­side the 18-yard box, man­aged to elude Year­wood.

Bre­ana Smith then came close to get­ting T&T back on lev­el terms but her free-kick through a four-play­er Cuban wall was brave­ly kept out by goal­keep­er Shaila Her­nan­dez low to her right while fel­low T&T for­ward, Talia Mar­tin al­so cre­at­ed a few ner­vous mo­ments for the Span­ish-speak­ing is­landers as T&T bom­bard­ed their op­po­si­tion goal, time af­ter time with the hope of get­ting the go-ahead strike, but with­out luck.

T&T's cause was fur­ther helped with Cu­ba de­fend­er Lianet Fran­co was showed a sec­ond yel­low card for a foul on re­quired out­come Faith Alexan­der.

Smith then had a long-range des­tined for the top right-hand cor­ner of the goal plucked out of the air by Her­nan­dez in the dy­ing min­utes as her team held on with the ten play­ers to se­cure the win.

In the night's open­er, Suri­name avoid­ed the wood­en spoon with a 3-1 de­feat of Grena­da in the clash of win­less teams.

Tues­day's Re­sults

Suri­name 3 (Roy­anie Kar­jasemi­ta 16th, Micha­jah Emanuels 34th, Shani­ka Ker­toid­jo­jo 63rd) v Grena­da 1 (Tea­sis Jones 48th)

Cu­ba 2 (Dalia Baez 31, Keila Her­nan­dez 42) vs T&T 1 (Caris­sa Cow­an 8th)

Fi­nal Stand­ings

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts
1. Cu­ba*3*3*0*0*16*1*9
2. T&T*3*2*0*1*14*2*6
3. Suri­name*3*1*0*2*3*11*3
4. Grena­da*3*0*0*3*1*20*0

Trinidad and To­ba­go Team - 1. Mikaela Year­wood (GK), 18. Sadiel An­toine (GK), 2. J’eleisha Alexan­der, 3. Faith Alexan­der, 4. Jeni­ceia Ben­jamin (cap­tain), 5. An­gel Berot, 6. Arie Bha­gan, 7. Talia Mar­tin, 8. Twin­kle Thomas, 9. Bre­ana Smith, 10. Orielle Mar­tin, 11. Mi­akay­la St Clair, 12. Gamie Wal­dron, 13. Caris­sa Cow­an, 14. Niki­ta Jack­son, 15. Jew­el Ben­jamin-Ed­mond-King, 16. Akia Mor­ris, 17. Rashee­da Archer.