Out-of-favour So­ca War­riors mid­field­er Hughton Hec­tor made a bold state­ment to na­tion­al coach Ot­to Pfis­ter as he scored two goals to lead a youth­ful W Con­nec­tion to a con­vinc­ing 4-2 whip­ping of Cale­do­nia AIA in their First Cit­i­zens Cup Group B clash on Fri­day night. Na­tion­al youth team duo, Shan­don Win­ches­ter and Jer­rel Brit­to got the oth­er goals for six-time win­ners W Con­nec­tion in the come-from-be­hind vic­to­ry at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo. How­ev­er, ear­ly on it seemed as though the night would be­long Cale­do­nia, which set­tled quick­ly and cre­at­ed the first open­ing for de­fend­er Aquil Sel­by, who blast­ed high over­bar from in­side the 18-yard box while off-sea­son sign­ing Mic­ah Lewis forced a save out of goal­keep­er Aquil­ius Sylvester. It wasn't long be­fore Cale­do­nia open­ing the sc­cor­ing when na­tion­al strik­er, Ja­mal Gay, an­oth­er Cale­do­nia new­com­er latched on­to a ball down the cen­tre of the W Con­nec­tion de­fence from Den­sill Theobald be­fore he beat the on­rush­ing Sylvestere with the out­side of his right boot.

How­ev­er that ad­van­tage didn't last long, as two min­utes lat­er Winces­ter lev­elled the scores 1-1 guid­ing in a re­bound from in­side the six yard area, af­ter goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham could on­ly pat down a fierce right foot­ed free-kick from Hec­tor in the 26th minute. On the half-hour, W Con­nec­tion went ahead 22-1 when he beat Gra­ham on his near post with a low shot from wide of the area at an an­gle on the right and three min­utes lat­er Brit­to made it 3-1 as he blast­ed in a low right foot­er across Gra­ham and in off the far post from a Win­ches­ter feed. Just be­fore the in­ter­val Gay missed a chance to re­duce the deficit for Cale­do­nia as his lung­ing ef­fort was just inch­es wide of tha tar­get fol­low­ing a mix up by the W Con­nec­tion de­fence. Four min­utes af­ter the restart Brit­to wast­ed a chance to seal the win for W Con­nec­tion as he curled a left foot­ed ef­fort wide of the far post while Win­ches­ter fired straight at Gra­ham's feet with the goal at his mer­cy.

W Con­nec­tion con­tin­ued to dic­tate the pace of the match with its quick pass­ing and move­ment and it seemed just a mat­ter of time be­fore it added to its lead.

Hec­tor again tried his luck from dis­tance on­ly to see his shot de­flect­ed away for a cor­ner in the 67th minute but sev­en min­utes lat­er he was not to be de­nied as he robbed Cale­do­nia cap­tain, Den­sil Theobald of the ball mid­way in his own-half be­fore un­leash­ing an un­stop­pable right foot­er past the des­per­ate lung of Gra­ham and in­to the top left cor­ner of the net for a ccom­mand­ing 4-1 ad­van­tage. Against the run of play, Cale­do­nia man­aged to get a sec­ond goal when sub­sti­tute Trevin Cae­sar, worked his way in­to the penal­ty-area from on the right flanked and slapped a left foot­ed shot past two de­fend­ers and Sylvester, how­ev­er it was too lit­tle to late. W Con­nec­tion, win­ners in 2001 and 2004-8 will next meet Di­recTV North East Stars at the same venue on Tues­day from 7pm in its fi­nal group match, while Stars and Cale­do­nia meet on Fri­day.

T&TEC, Rangers in dull draw

In the night's first match in Group A, debu­tants T&TEC and St Ann's Rangers played to a lack­lus­tre 0-0 draw. T&TEC's best chance of the first-half fell to Kevon Neaves and Guyanese in­ter­na­tion­al Vur­lon Mills, but both men failed to force Rangers' gal­keep­er Shane Mat­tis in­to a save. In the sceond-half, Rangers' Shaquille Nes­bitte head­ed wide of the tar­get af­ter be­ing picked out at the far post by a Trent Noel free-kick while sev­en min­utes from full-time T&TEC's An­drei Pacheco forced Mat­tis in­to a spetac­u­lar save high to his right from 35-yard free-kick which had goal writ­ten all over it. At the oth­er end, Rangers' sub­sti­tute Keon Trim robbed T&TEC goal­keep­er, Clay­ton Ince off the ball, but with the goal at his mer­cy he hes­i­tat­ed and was even­tu­al­ly closed down. At the end of Fri­day's two group round-robin se­ries the top two clubs will ad­vance to crossover semi­fi­nals on Sep­tem­ber 30 fol­lowed by the fi­nal on Oc­to­ber 14. The win­ner of this year's com­pe­ti­tion will walk away with $80,000 while the run­ner-up gets $20,000.

Fri­day's Re­sults

Quar­ter­fi­nal Day 1

Group A:

T&TEC 0 vs St Ann's Rangers 0

Group B:

W Con­nec­tion 4 (Hughton Hec­tor 30th, 78th, Shah­don Win­ches­ter 26th, Jer­rel Brit­to 33rd) vs Cale­do­nia 2 (Ja­mal Gay 25th, Trevin Cae­sar 90th).

Re­main­ing First Cit­i­zens Cup fix­ture:

Venue: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo

Quar­ter­fi­nal Day 2:

Tues­day Sept 20:

T&TEC vs Jabloteh, 5 pm

W Con­nec­tion vs North East Stars, 7 pm

Quar­ter­fi­nal Day 3

Fri­day Sept 23:

St Ann's Rangers vs Jabloteh, 5 pm

Cale­do­nia vs North East Stars, 7 pm

Semi­fi­nals

Fri­day Sept 30

A 1 vs B 2

A 2 vs B 1

Fi­nal: Oc­to­ber 14