Last year’s Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) Fe­male Play­er of the Year, Niki­ta Go­sine, scored a brace with goals in the 73rd and 75th min­utes, to lead the De­fence Force to a 5-0 thrash­ing of de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Club San­do when the ac­tion in the 3Ws Women’s Foot­ball Tour­na­ment at the Train­ing Field of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day night (Au­gust 6).

The goals led the Army/Coast Guard/Civil­ian com­bi­na­tion team to the top of the three-team Group B stand­ings with six points from two match­es, and in­to Fri­day's (Au­gust 8) semi­fi­nals against Group A’s run­ners-up, Pro Se­ries XI, which kicks off at 7 pm.

Na­tion­al mid­field­er Shenelle Ar­joon set the stage for the De­fence Force vic­to­ry by find­ing the net as ear­ly as the 21st minute. With Club San­do rest­ing most of its play­ers for the en­counter, the De­fence Force feast­ed with two more T&T se­nior team play­ers, Asha James and Aaliyah Prince, push­ing the score to 3-0 with their goals in the 48th and 56th min­utes, re­spec­tive­ly.

San­do came in­to the show­down with two points from an ear­li­er en­counter with the Guyana De­fence Force. The match end­ed in a draw, which ac­count­ed for one point, while San­do’s even­tu­al tri­umph in the en­su­ing penal­ty shootout al­so earned them a point ac­cord­ing to tour­na­ment rules.

But any fas­ci­na­tions the south­ern­ers held about a come­back were fur­ther erased when Go­sine let her tal­ent come to the fore against the cur­rent Women’s Foot­ball League (WoLF) cham­pi­ons, scor­ing a late dou­ble.

Mean­while, the Grena­da XI al­so sealed a berth in the round of four teams by shut­ting out Pro Se­ries 2-0 in the oth­er group match. Abi­gail Williams opened the Grena­di­an ac­count in the 8th minute for a 1-0 ad­van­tage.

In the 50th minute, Nia Flem­ing-Thomas sealed their safe pas­sage to the semi­fi­nals.

They come up against Club San­do in Fri­day's (Au­gust 8) first semi­fi­nal at 5 pm.

The Grena­di­ans end­ed the group stage with an un­blem­ished record that put them on six points at the top of the group, ahead of the Pro Se­ries on three with a 1-1 win-loss record, while the To­ba­go Chi­cas are win­less in their two match­es.

STAND­INGS

Group A

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

Grena­da*2*2*0*0*8*0*6

Pro Se­ries U-20s*2*1*0*1*3*2*3

To­ba­go Chi­cas*2*0*0*2*0*9*0

Group B

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

T&T D/Force*2*2*0*0*10*3*6

Club San­do*2*0*1*1*1*1*2

Guyana D/Force*2*0*1*1*4*6*1