Team cap­tain San­ni Wil­son and To­rie Jean-Jacques scored two goals each as T&T Un­der-17 girls spanked Bar­ba­dos 8-2 for their first win in Group F of the Con­ca­caf U-17 Women’s Cham­pi­onship at the Sta­dion Rig­naal Fran­cis­ca, Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao on Wednes­day night.

Com­ing off a 2-2 draw with host Cu­ra­cao in their open­er at the same venue on Sat­ur­day, the Ayan­na Rus­sell-coached T&T girls were ea­ger for a pos­i­tive start against the Bar­ba­di­ans, who suf­fered a 6-0 blowout against El Sal­vador in their cur­tain-rais­er on Mon­day.

In the tenth minute, T&T was gift­ed the lead when a tame right sided cross by Cana­da-based Chelsea John caused a mix-up be­tween de­fend­er Am­meirah Grif­fith, and goal­keep­er Roshau­na Mas­si­ah, re­sult­ed in an easy tap-in in­to an open net for Wil­son.

But, two min­utes lat­er, Bar­ba­dos hit back in fan­tas­tic fash­ion when her high loop­ing free-kick by Gabrielle Birm­ing­ham from about 35-yards out was mis-judged by T&T cus­to­di­an Zofia Richards.

The Ba­jans’ joy was short-lived, though, as Wil­son then re­stored her team’s lead in the 17th minute with her sec­ond goal of the con­test with a right-foot­ed fin­ish from just in­side the 18-yard box af­ter be­ing put through on goal by Jade Jones.

The T&T at­tack then took over, with a head­er from close range from Shiyah Matthews in the 34th off a cor­ner-kicks’, fol­lowed by a rock­et from long-range from Rori Git­tens in the 40th, and an­oth­er fin­ish from out­side the box from Jean-Jacques in the 45’+2’, which goal­keep­er Mas­si­ah failed to hold on­to for a 5-1 score at the half.

Six min­utes af­ter the re­sump­tion, T&T fur­ther ex­tend­ed their ad­van­tage through a head­er from John from a cor­ner and a fin­ish from the cen­tre of the box from Jean-Jacques in the 55th, which slipped un­der goal­keep­er Mas­si­ah, be­fore Bar­ba­dos short­ened the deficit with a penal­ty from Birm­ing­ham in the 63rd, her sec­ond goal of the match.

Bar­ba­dos was then award­ed a penal­ty kick in the 63rd minute when T&T right-back Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt mis-timed a clear­ance and con­nect­ed with Shaman­da Blen­man-Mur­ray, which left ref­er­ee Ka­reem Ben­jamin with lit­tle choice but to point to the penal­ty spot, with Birm­ing­ham con­vert­ing.

Nine min­utes lat­er, T&T was al­so award­ed a penal­ty for a high-boot in­ci­dent in the 18-yard box, with Jade Jones scor­ing for T&T to seal the lop­sided win, which car­ried T&T to four points from two match­es, one more than El Sal­vador, who they face in their fi­nal match on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 1, from 4 pm.

Tonight, Cu­ra­cao will en­ter­tain El Sal­vador in both teams’ sec­ond match, while the host faces Bar­ba­dos in Sun­day’s oth­er match.

Com­ment­ing on the win, Rus­sell first con­grat­u­lat­ed her team on the win.

She said, “I know how much they want­ed this; we got our first three points, so I’m def­i­nite­ly hap­py about that and hap­py about get­ting goals, even though we could have scored a lot more.”

Rus­sell added, “I def­i­nite­ly saw a lot of im­prove­ments in that area in par­tic­u­lar, so I’m re­al­ly hap­py for the team and ex­cit­ed for the chem­istry that’s been built every game.”

Com­par­ing both match­es they have played to date in the tour­na­ment, Rus­sell said, “Def­i­nite­ly in the mid­dle of the fi­nal two, the con­nec­tions be­tween the mid­field and the strik­ers, a lot of the runs that we moved on, we tried it.”

“They’re ac­tu­al­ly now try­ing to ex­e­cute every­thing that we moved on, so now it’s just about im­prov­ing on that again, just con­tin­u­ous­ly build­ing chem­istry be­tween all the lines, but def­i­nite­ly in the mid­dle of the fi­nal two, I thought we did much bet­ter to­day (Wednes­day).”

Look­ing ahead to the match with El Sal­vador, Rus­sell said, “I think from an or­ga­ni­za­tion­al stand­point, we’re in a good place, it’s just to stay locked in.

“I think we need to tight­en up a lit­tle bit in those fi­nal two, in our ex­e­cu­tion in front of the group, so again that will be an area that we will be fo­cus­ing on be­cause we still have not seen the tal­ent of this group in that area.”

Fol­low­ing round-robin play, the six group win­ners and the two best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers will ad­vance to the Fi­nal Round, join­ing the four top-ranked teams in the re­gion, which re­ceived a bye, in­clu­sive of Cana­da, Mex­i­co, Puer­to Ri­co, and the USA.

<Pana­ma se­cures U-17 fi­nal round spot>

MI­A­MI – Pana­ma be­came the first team to se­cure its place in the Fi­nal Round along­side the au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fiers af­ter they se­cured top spot in Group B of the Con­ca­caf Women’s Un­der-17 Qual­i­fiers on Wednes­day.

This was af­ter Pana­ma and Bermu­da played out an ex­cit­ing 2-2 draw at Bermu­da Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre in De­von­shire Parish, Bermu­da.

Sha­day Mow con­vert­ed from the penal­ty spot in the 8’ for Pana­ma to pull ahead.

Da­ley Out­er­bridge equalised for the hosts in the 17’, tak­ing ad­van­tage of a pre­cise pass in­to space from Av­ery Tay­lor.

Suri­name turned the scor­ing around in the 47’ with a shot from Priya Dill.

Pana­ma tied the match in the 83rd minute, with Crista­bel­la Ríos strik­ing from close range fol­low­ing a de­liv­ery from Gabriela Ro­dríguez on a set piece op­por­tu­ni­ty.

With the re­sult, Pana­ma se­cured the Group B lead and ad­vanced to the Fi­nal Round of the Qual­i­fiers, while Suri­name bowed out of the tour­na­ment with a 3-0 win over Bonaire.

In Group A, Be­lize won 3-0 against Do­mini­ca at Es­ta­dio Miguel Chocor­rón Buitra­go in Man­agua, Nicaragua while host Nicaragua slammed US Vir­gin Is­lands 12-0 for a third straight vic­to­ry to jump in­to first place.