Nigel Si­mon

Three dif­fer­ent play­ers were on tar­get as Haiti blanked Cu­ba 3-0 to main­tain its 100 per cent win­ning record in Group G of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Sec­ond Round Women's Gold Cup/Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games (CAC) qual­i­fiers at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la on Thurs­day night. Af­ter a 0-0 first 45 min­utes in the clash of first day win­ners, Fior­da Charles opened the scor­ing for the Haitians in the 55th minute be­fore Kim­ber­ly Alex­is Bou­los (75th) and Saman­tha Brandx (86th) added one each to se­cure a sec­ond straight win, af­ter their 4-1 whip­ping of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da. With the win, Haiti moved to max­i­mum six points and need on­ly a draw in its fi­nal match against Puer­to Ri­co to­day from 4 pm at the same venue to top the group.

The Puer­to Ri­cans, re­bound­ed from their nar­row 4-3 loss to Cu­ba on Tues­day with an 8-0 bash­ing of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da led by two goals each from Ang­iemar Fe­lix and Es­mer­al­da Ne­gron. Need­ing a win to stay in the hunt for top spot in the group, Puer­to Ri­co got off to a per­fect start when Fe­lix net­ted the open­er af­ter on­ly four min­utes and she added an­oth­er in the 16th minute for a 2-0 lead. Ne­gro ex­tend­ed the lead to 3-0 two min­utes lat­er be­fore Denisse Soltero (35th) and Car­men Reys (39th) made it 5-0 at the half-time in­ter­val. In the sec­ond-half, the Puer­to Ri­cans con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate and added three more goals through Ne­gron (72nd), Marthal­iz Taboas (84th) and sub­sti­tute Jacque­lyne Guer­ra in the 90th minute to hand An­tigua & Bar­bu­da an­oth­er drub­bing. To­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da will meet Cu­ba in its fi­nal match from 6 pm, with the Span­ish-speak­ing play­ers need­ing a win.

Last night, Group F con­clud­ed at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya with host T&T and Guyana fac­ing off for top spot with six points each. The Guyanese have a bet­ter goal-dif­fer­ence of plus-11 to T&T's plus-ten and need on­ly a draw to se­cure top spot. In the first match, Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia face off. At the end of the two round-robin groups in T&T, the top two teams in each group will qual­i­fy for a Third Round, four-team se­ries from which the top three will qual­i­fy for the Con­ca­caf Women's Gold Cup to be played in Oc­to­ber. In ad­di­tion, the Sec­ond Round group win­ners and the best sec­ond place team from the two groups in T&T will al­so qual­i­fy for the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games card­ed for Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co, Ju­ly 17 to Au­gust 1. Puer­to Ri­co qual­i­fied as host. Al­ready qual­i­fy­ing for the Gold Cup are Cana­da, Mex­i­co, USA, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Guatemala. The quar­tet of Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Nicaragua and El Sal­vador have al­so qual­i­fied for the CAC Games.

Thurs­day Group G Re­sults

Venue: Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la:

Haiti 3 (Fior­da Charles 55th, Kim­ber­ly Alex­is Bou­los 75th, Saman­tha Brandx 86th) vs Cu­ba 0.

Puer­to Ri­co 8 (Ang­iemar Fe­lix 4th, 16th, Es­mer­al­da Ne­gron 18th, 72nd, Denisse Soltero 35th, Car­men Reyes 39th, Marthal­iz Taboas 84th, Jacque­lyne Guer­ra 90th) vs An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 0.

Re­main­ing match­es Sat­ur­day: Group G

Haiti vs Puer­to Ri­co, 4pm.

Cu­ba vs An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, 6pm.