BALTIMORE–About a yard from the goal line and at the edge of the six-yard box, Giles Barnes did not have much to shoot for.
"I kind of looked up and didn't really see anyone in box, and I thought just hit it hard and low," he said. "The coach had been telling me to shoot more."
The Houston Dynamo forward scored from an acute angle between the legs of goalkeeper Johnny Placide in the seventh minute, and Jamaica beat Haiti 1-0 on Saturday night to reach its first Concacaf Gold Cup semifinal since 1998.
Trying to advance to the championship game for the first time, the Reggae Boyz will play the defending champion United States in Atlanta on Wednesday.
"They've been solid at the back, and they're moving the ball well, exactly what you'd expect from a Jurgen Klinsmann," Barnes said.
"So they'll be a tough test on Wednesday, but we're confident that we're more than capable of coming away with a result."
The Reggae Boyz went ahead when Crystal Palace's Adrian Mariappa ran onto a pass over the defense that landed near the goal line and cut the ball back to the 26-year-old Barnes, who was born in London and played for England's Under-19 team before switching his allegiance to Jamaica.
He took a touch and scored his second international goal on a shot that deflected off the inside right ankle of Placide's right ankle.
In an end-to-end match, Haiti had a great chance to tie but Kervens Belfort missed just wide with a diving header in second-half stoppage time.
"We demonstrated this evening an enormous ability, enormous capacity on the field for 90 minutes," Haiti coach Cesar Ramos said through a translator.
In the first Gold Cup knockout stage match between Caribbean opponents, Jamaica was missing Vancouver forward Darren Mattocks and Dallas midfielder Je-Vaughn Watson, both suspended for yellow card accumulation.
Houston defender Jermaine Taylor was dropped from the roster after injuring a leg during Tuesday night's win over El Salvador. Winfried Schaefer, the German coach hired by Jamaica two years ago, said Taylor is staying around and might cook for his teammates ahead of the US game.
"That is not a joke, believe me," Schaefer said. "Yesterday was chicken and fish. Today (is) fish and chicken. Tomorrow, chicken and fish. But it's good food...The Jamaica people know."
In the other match, Clint Dempsey walked away with the game ball for one of the few times in his career. With his first international hat trick, he boosted the United States to a 6-0 rout over Cuba.
Dempsey put the Americans ahead with a fourth-minute header, converted a penalty kick in the 64th and added the final goal in the 78th.
"Habits carry over: scoring goals, getting a clean sheet, people getting assists," Dempsey said. "That confidence, definitely it grows in the team. And as the tournament goes on, people are getting stronger as a group."
Dempsey has scored a tournament-high six times, and his 47 international goals are 10 behind Landon Donovan's American record.
Gyasi Zardes (15th minute), Aron Johannsson (32nd) and Omar Gonzalez (45th) also scored as the Americans built a 4-0 halftime lead against a Cuban team depleted by five absent players who may have defected. Before a pro-US crowd of 37,994, the Americans outshot the Cubans 24-7.
"After a couple shaky performances in the group, we came out here and dominated the game," Johannsson said.