MI­A­MI, Flori­da – Mía Asen­jo and Lu­cia Marte scored braces, and the race for first in League B, Group C tight­ened when the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic crushed hosts Bar­ba­dos 7-1 in the CON­CA­CAF Women’s Gold Cup qual­i­fiers on Fri­day.

At the same time, Krysan St Louis notched a hat-trick and Ar­nic­ka Louis bagged a brace, and hosts St Lu­cia re­mained in the race for first in League C, Group B with a 5-1 win against Guade­loupe.

AT THE WILDEY TURF STA­DI­UM: An em­phat­ic sec­ond-half per­for­mance hand­ed the DR their fourth suc­ces­sive win and put them sec­ond in the group on 12 points, one be­hind Bermu­da, who gained three points af­ter St Vin­cent & the Grenadines ear­li­er in­formed the or­gan­is­ers they were pulling out of their match in Hamil­ton.

The match was a gen­uine con­test at half-time with the vis­i­tors lead­ing 2-1, af­ter Mia Asen­jo opened con­nect­ed with a pass over the top to beat Bar­ba­dos goal­keep­er Rhea Hold­er in the 21st minute and fol­lowed up with head­er in the 33rd minute.

In be­tween, Aca­cia Small scored for the Bar­ba­di­ans in the 32nd minute af­ter strip­ping a Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic de­fend­er and drib­bling through the mid­dle of the field to fin­ish with a lobbed at­tempt from out­side the box.

Lu­cia Marte added a third for the DR in the 48th minute with a strike at the left post from a Kathrynn Gon­za­lez cross, and the vis­i­tors went on a goal scor­ing spree in the last 25 min­utes to fend off any chance of a Bar­ba­dos re­cov­ery.

Alyssa Oviedo sup­plied the fourth for Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic with a right-foot­ed shot from in­side the box in the 68th minute, and Gon­za­lez got on the board with a free-kick that was struck with enough force to get past Hold­er in the 77th minute for the fifth.

Winib­ian Per­al­ta put the fin­ish­ing touch on a build-up through the right flank from Jazmin Jack­son in the 82nd minute, and Marte got her sec­ond with a curl­ing free kick to add the ex­cla­ma­tion point in the 87th minute.

The DR will host the Bermu­di­ans on the fi­nal match-day on Tues­day at the Fe­lix Sanchez Olympic Sta­di­um in San­to Domin­go in the group de­cider.

AT THE DAREN SAM­MY CRICK­ET GROUND: The re­sult put the St Lu­cians with­in three points of group lead­ers Cu­ba.

St Lu­cia can win the group with a win against the Cubans in the group fi­nale on Tues­day at the An­to­nio Maceo Sta­di­um in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba.

Louis con­tin­ued her love af­fair with the Guade­lou­peans and gave St Lu­cia the lead in the sev­enth minute when there was a mad scram­ble in front of goal af­ter a de­flec­tion had hit the post, and she slid in and slot the ball in­to the net.

A counter-press from St Lu­cia end­ed with Louis fir­ing in­to net in the 22nd minute to dou­ble the lead be­fore St Louis got in on the scor­ing act.

St Louis fol­lowed up her own blocked shot with a del­i­cate chip in­to goal in the 39th minute to give the hosts a 3-0 half-time lead.

Af­ter the break, St Louis split a pair of de­fend­ers and latched on­to a ball in the area and fin­ished past Guade­loupe goal­keep­er Maina Mor­nal in the 57th minute.

Guade­loupe were re­ward­ed for their per­sis­tence with a goal in the 89th minute when Syd­jal­hia Gar­ri­ba fired in a right-foot­ed shot, but St Louis re­stored the ad­van­tage with a stop­page time strike.

CMC

Fri­day's re­sults

DAREN SAM­MY CRICK­ET GROUND, Gros Islet, St Lu­cia

ST LU­CIA beat GUADE­LOUPE 5-1 (Half-time: 3-1)

LCA: Ar­nic­ka Louis 7th minute, 21st, Krysan St Louis 39th, 57th, 90th (+2)

GLP: Syd­jal­hia Gar­ri­ba 89th

WILDEY TURF STA­DI­UM, Wildey, Bar­ba­dos

DO­MINI­CAN RE­PUB­LIC beat BAR­BA­DOS 7-1 (2-1)

DOM: Mía Asen­jo 21st, 33rd, Lu­cia Marte 48th, 87th, Alyssa Oviedo 68th, Kathrynn González 77th, Winib­ian Per­al­ta 81st

BRB: Aca­cia Small 32nd