MI­A­MI, Flori­da – Haiti and St Maarten con­firmed their pro­mo­tion sta­tus with wins against fel­low Caribbean Foot­ball Union sides, Bermu­da and the Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands re­spec­tive­ly, in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League on Tues­day.

But Bonaire nar­row­ly missed out when they were beat­en by the Turks & Caicos Is­lands, and Guyana played to a goal­less draw with Montser­rat when the group stage drew to a close.

A brace from Frantzdy Pier­rot en­abled Haiti to bid farewell to League B with a 3-1 win over Bermu­da at the Es­ta­dio Panamer­i­cano in San Cristo­bal, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

The re­sult meant that Les Grenadiers se­cured first place in Group B and pro­mo­tion to League A, but that did not stop the the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup-bound team from con­tin­u­ing their strong scor­ing form.

Pier­rot got them in­to the swing of things in the 25th minute af­ter a dri­ve down the right flank from Carne­jy An­toine led to ser­vice in­side the box for the pro­lif­ic Hait­ian front­man to fin­ish neat­ly.

Jeppe Si­mon­sen dou­bled the lead for Haiti one minute lat­er with his sec­ond in­ter­na­tion­al goal on a pass from Bryan Al­ceus.

An­toine ex­tend­ed Haiti’s led to three in the first-half stop­page time with a mas­ter­ful hit from out­side the box. It was the 11th in­ter­na­tion­al tal­ly for An­toine and first of the year.

Jai Bean earned a con­so­la­tion item for the Bermu­di­ans with a lob over Hait­ian goal­keep­er Jo­sue Du­verg­er from in­side the box in the 75th minute.

Jeroen Cox scored a late win­ner to en­able St Maar­teen to beat the USVI 2-1 on the road at the Beth­le­hem Soc­cer Com­plex in St Croix to fin­ish top of Group A in League C and earn a pro­mo­tion to League B and a spot in the pre­lim­i­nary com­pe­ti­tion for this year’s Con­ca­caf Gold Cup.

The first half was a fair­ly even af­fair, and each side man­aged a hand­ful of fair chances, but nei­ther was able to break through and the match re­mained score­less at half­time, but the match came alive in the sec­ond half and was tied 1-1 with 15 min­utes re­main­ing.

With his very first touch, Cox slipped the ball past USVI goal­keep­er Li­onel Brown to cat­a­pult the Dutch side back in­to the lead and they held on to fin­ish group in first.

League C top scor­er Ger­win Lake gave St Maarten the lead with his eighth goal of the tour­na­ment in the 58th minute when he blast­ed the ball in­to the net from 25 yards out be­fore USVI cap­tain Kar­son Kendall struck back for the hosts when he knocked in a cor­ner in the 76th minute.

St Maarten topped the group with 11 points and the USVI fin­ished fourth with four points.

Guyana and Montser­rat failed to break the dead­lock their League B, Group C con­test at the Wildey Turf in Bar­ba­dos.

Guyana were locked in­to the sec­ond place head­ing in­to the match, and they were search­ing for a fourth win to put to­geth­er their best CNL cam­paign, and Montser­rat was search­ing for their sec­ond vic­to­ry of the tour­na­ment to fin­ish third in the group.

But goal­keep­ers Kai McKen­zie-Lyle and Cor­rin Brooks capped off their in­di­vid­ual cam­paigns with clean sheets, and both teams will re­turn to League B in the next CNL.

Guiller­mo Mon­tero en­abled hosts Bonaire to make an ear­ly state­ment when he launched a rock­et of a free kick from well out­side the penal­ty area past TCI goal­keep­er Se­bas­t­ian Tur­by­field and in­to the back of the net, send­ing the home crowd at the Sta­dion An­to­nio Trenidat in Rin­con in­to a joy­ous fren­zy.

But TCI were not in­tim­i­dat­ed, and Bil­ly Forbes ran down the right wing and weaved be­tween three de­fend­ers be­fore fir­ing a low shot that crept in­side the near post to tie the match in the 18th minute.,

Forbes then gave the vis­i­tors the lead in the 40th minute via a long free kick of his own, curl­ing the ball in­to the top right cor­ner.

When the TCI play­mak­er stepped up to take a 54th minute penal­ty, it felt like the match had got­ten away from Bonaire, but the home team goal­keep­er Rishi­son Frans made an ex­cel­lent div­ing save, and in the process swung the mo­men­tum back to­wards the hosts.

A sec­ond yel­low card for Christo­pher Louisy to re­duced TCI to 10 men, but the late ef­forts from Bonaire to find the equalis­er were all fruit­less.

Bonaire fin­ished sec­ond in League C, Group A with an im­pres­sive 10 points, and TCI end­ed third with nine points.

At the close of the CNL group stage, which in­volved all 41 Con­ca­caf mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions di­vid­ed in­to three leagues, the four League A group win­ners – Mex­i­co (Group A), Pana­ma (Group B), Cana­da (Group C), and the Unit­ed States (Group D), se­cured their places in the se­mi-fi­nals on June 15 at the Al­le­giant Sta­di­um in the Amer­i­can city of Las Ve­gas.

League B group win­ners – Cu­ba (Group A), Haiti (Group B), Nicaragua (Group C), and Guatemala (Group D); and League C group win­ners – St Maarten (Group A), St Kitts & Nevis (Group B), St Lu­cia (Group C), and Puer­to Ri­co (Group D), en­sured their pro­mo­tion to Leagues A and B, re­spec­tive­ly, for the third edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion.

The Group Stage al­so served to qual­i­fy teams for the 2023 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup, kick­ing off on June 16.

CMC

Se­lect­ed re­sults

League B, Group B

Haiti beat Bermu­da 3-1 (3-0)

Haiti: Frant­dy Pier­rot 25, 26, Carne­jy An­toine 45(+4)

Bermu­da: Jai Bean 75

Guyana drew with Montser­rat 0-0 (0-0)

League C, Group A

St Maarten beat Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands 2-1 (Half­time: 0-0)

St Maarten: Ger­win Lake 58th minute, Jeroen Cox 86

ISV: Kar­son Kendall 76

Turks & Caicos Is­lands beat Bonaire 2-1 (2-1)

TCI: Bil­ly Forbes 18, 40

BOE: Guiller­mo Mon­tero 2