Adasa Richard­son kept the T&T chances of a CON­CA­CAF Un­der-17 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing berth alive when he scored the lone goal in an en­ter­tain­ing 1-0 win over Saint Mar­tin in Thurs­day night’s Group A en­counter be­fore an ap­pre­cia­tive crowd at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo.

The re­sult al­lowed fans to breathe a sigh of re­lief fol­low­ing T&T’s 1-0 de­feat to Bar­ba­dos in the open­er on Tues­day.

T&T looked more com­posed on the ball in the ear­ly mo­ments of the game, which al­most led to the open­er in the 4th minute. Af­ter be­ing beat­en sur­pris­ing­ly by Bar­ba­dos in their first match, coach Ran­dolph Boyce opt­ed to play the sim­ple pass­ing game, which saw his mid­field­ers car­ry­ing out most of the bull work.

Richard­son then thread­ed the ball to the un­marked Chris­t­ian Pitt in the Saint Mar­tin penal­ty area, but Pitt’s shot was kept out by the out­stretched leg of goal­keep­er Lend­sey Ben­jamin as ear­ly as the fourth minute.

The ef­fec­tive­ness of the T&T at­tack be­came even more no­tice­able as Pitts, Je­re­mai Nan­ton, An­tu­an Loui­son and com­pa­ny com­bined against a team that held the top spot in the four-team Group A stand­ings fol­low­ing their 3-0 tri­umph over Sint Maarten on the open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion. Still, coach Ran­dolph Boyce’s con­cerns about his team’s fin­ish­ing grew even more ev­i­dent, as chances con­tin­ued to be cre­at­ed but went un­con­vert­ed.

In the 17th minute, T&T thought they should have had the open­er when Nan­ton took the ball deep in­to the Saint Mar­tin goal area be­fore re­leas­ing it to the un­marked Richard­son, on­ly for the lat­ter’s at­tempt to be kept out by Ben­jamin from the six-yard box. Lat­er, Saint Mar­tin had its first re­al chance at goal, af­ter twice hav­ing its at­tacks bro­ken down as they en­tered the T&T de­fen­sive third.

But this time, Wil­fried Plumain was re­leased deep down the left in­to the T&T goal area, and from a se­mi-acute an­gle, Plumain lashed the ball high over the cross­bar.

Richard­son, a thorn in the side of the Saint Mar­tin de­fence all night, con­tin­ued to lead the T&T at­tack af­ter the break, as he was picked out with a long lift­ed ball that Richard­son con­nect­ed with his head, on­ly to bounce wide of the Saint Mar­tin goal in the 55th minute.

More con­cerns con­sumed the T&T team than of their goal-scor­ing touch. And in the 64th minute Saint Mar­tin al­most put tears in their eyes when Raphael Gavarin picked out Sadiyia Di­a­by from the free kick, on­ly for his head­er to fly wide of the post.

How­ev­er, the Saint Mar­tin lads could do noth­ing when de­fend­er An­ge­lo Flem­ing han­dled the ball in­side his goal area in the full view of ref­er­ee Ka­reem Ben­jamin from St Kitts/Nevis in the 73rd minute, forc­ing him to point to the penal­ty spot, much to the de­light of the T&T fans. And Richard­son (Adasa) stepped up and sent the goalie the wrong way for the 1-0 ad­van­tage and his coun­try’s first goal of the tour­na­ment.

Sev­en min­utes from the end, Richard­son had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put the game out of the reach of their op­po­nents. This time he was served a long ball that met him on­ly with the last de­fend­er in front of him. Richard­son un­selfish­ly re­leased to the on­com­ing Kanye Glas­gow, whose de­layed ef­fort was even­tu­al­ly saved by the Saint Mar­tin goal­keep­er.

Ear­li­er, Mex­i­co ham­mered Sint Maarten 10-0 to go atop of the group on a bet­ter goal dif­fer­ence than Saint Mar­tin, Bar­ba­dos, and T&T, all of whom are on three points.

TEAMS

SAINT MAR­TIN

1 Lend­sey Ben­jamin, 2 Raphael­Gavarin, 3 An­ge­lo Flem­ing, 4 Sidiya Di­a­by, 5 Thad­jany Lewest, 7 Matthieu Mendy, 8 Yancey Go­nague, 10 Zanet­ty Male­branche, 11 Wil­fried Plumain, 15 Nathaniel Gre­goire, 18 Ar­daY­ildirim

Subs

16 An­tho­ny Emile, 6 Maxime Gibbes, 9 Souley­mane Aubri­et, 12 Ro­main Suther­land, 13 Med­hi Min­gau, 14 Noah Bertaux, 17 Batiste Ro­driguez, 19 Damanii Browne, 20 Gilles En­zo.

T&T TEAM

21 Levi Williams, 3 Se­bas­t­ian James, 5 Jay­lon Roberts, 6 Je­re­mi­ah Daniel, 9 J’ Meke Watkins, 11 Adasa Richard­son, 15 Chris­t­ian Pitt, 16 Ke­nai Richard­son, 17 Je­re­mai Nan­ton, 19 An­tu­an Loui­son, 20 Akel Vesprey

Subs

1 Mikhail Clement, 18 Necose Moore, 4 An­to­nio Hills, 7 Ja­sai Theophilus, 8 Dono­van Dray­ton, 10 Finn De Fre­itas, 12 DanielLewis, 13 Adriel Fau­re, 14 Kanye Glas­gow.