Nigel Si­mon

Dig­i­cel Pro League club, Blink San Juan Jabloteh will be hop­ing to end its 2009 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League par­tic­i­pa­tion on a high when it en­ter­tains CD Marathon of Hon­duras tonight. The fi­nal group stage round-robin match in Group B will kick off at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo from 8pm. Jabloteh with­out a point in the com­pe­ti­tion is com­ing off a 3-1 de­feat against bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic and will be play­ing for pride, hop­ing to avenge a 3-1 away de­feat.

Marathon needs noth­ing less than a win to ad­vance to the last-eight ahead of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's DC Unit­ed. On Tues­day night a sec­ond-half penal­ty kick by Is­rael Lopez forged a 1-1 draw for Tolu­ca against vis­it­ing DC Unit­ed cap­tained by T&T's Av­ery John and clinched the Mex­i­can squad's berth in the quar­ter­fi­nals at Es­ta­dio Neme­sio Diez. Tolu­ca com­plet­ed the group stage with a 4-1-1 record atop Group B with 13 points fol­lowed by DC Unit­ed with ten, one bet­ter than Marathon. But while Tolu­ca is through, DC Unit­ed must wait un­til tonight to learn its fate. Tolu­ca al­so joined fel­low Mex­i­can sides Cruz Azul, Pachu­ca and Pumas in the knock­out stage, as well as the Colum­bus Crew of the MLS.

In Mex­i­co, DC Unit­ed jumped in front six min­utes af­ter the open­ing kick­off on Chris Pon­tius' sec­ond goal of the com­pe­ti­tion. For a while it ap­peared Los Di­a­b­los wouldn't solve DC goal­keep­er Steve Cronin, who was pressed in­to ac­tion ear­ly and of­ten. Tolu­ca equalised in the 62nd minute af­ter T&T ref­er­ee Ge­of­frey Hospedales point­ed to the spot for a clum­sy chal­lenge by Law­son Vaughn that sent Lopez tum­bling to the ground near the end line. Lopez, who came on for Vladimir Marin just three min­utes ear­li­er, put a low shot past Cronin, who dived to his left in vain.

Two min­utes lat­er, the vis­i­tors had their best chance to re­gain the lead, but De­von Mc­Tavish's div­ing head­er from 10 me­ters was wide of the net. Tolu­ca was safe to ad­vance with a draw, but the hosts still pressed for the win­ning goal. Diego De La Torre's bounc­ing shot in the 66th minute was wide to Cronin's left and then Cronin came up with a div­ing save at the edge of the six-yard box on Raul Na­va in the 73rd minute.