T&T Un­der-17 women’s foot­ball team will be go­ing all out for a sec­ond win from as many match­es when they meet Be­lize in their sec­ond match of Group B of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Girls Cham­pi­onship Round One Qual­i­fiers at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va from 8 pm on Wednes­day (Jan­u­ary 27) night.

The Ayan­na Rus­sell-coached lo­cals will en­ter the match as lead­ers of the four-team group with three points, ahead of Hon­duras on goal dif­fer­ence af­ter ham­mer­ing US Vir­gin Is­lands 5-0 in their tour­na­ment open­er at the same venue on Mon­day night led by a beaver-trick strik­er, Orielle Mar­tin.

In the open­ing match on Mon­day, Hon­duras blanked Be­lize 2-0, and they too will be go­ing af­ter a sec­ond win on the trot against US Vir­gin Is­lands from 6 pm.

On Mon­day night, T&T, mak­ing its sev­enth ap­pear­ance in the qual­i­fy­ing stage with the team hav­ing ad­vanced to the Fi­nal Round in 2008, 2012, 2013, and 2022, went in­to the tour­na­ment short-hand­ed with Sec­ondary School Girls Foot­ball League stand­out strik­er Niki­ta Go­sine pulling out of the team three days be­fore kick-off due to per­son­al rea­sons.

How­ev­er, against the US Vir­gin Is­lands, it did no harm to the T&T team, who took the lead in the 27th minute through Mar­tin with a left-foot­ed strike be­fore she made it 2-0 two min­utes lat­er with a long shot from the edge of the 18-yard box, af­ter which there were no more goals in the half.

Eight min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, USVI made a change in goal with Kyl­iz Os­o­rio be­ing re­placed by Is­abel­la Queza­da, and the lat­ter made an im­pres­sive start when she de­nied Mar­tin’s at­tempt for a third on the night by keep­ing out a 57th-minute penal­ty.

How­ev­er, the penal­ty miss did lit­tle to damp­en Mar­tin’s spir­its, as sev­en min­utes lat­er, the daugh­ter of for­mer na­tion­al women’s hock­ey play­er Orie Trot­man and past na­tion­al vol­ley­baller Vaughn Mar­tin fi­nal­ly com­plet­ed her hat trick be­fore she blast­ed in a fourth item with a volleyed ef­fort in the 66th.

With 15 min­utes left in the en­counter and her job for the night done, Mar­tin was re­placed by Madi­son Camp­bell, with Coach Rus­sell look­ing ahead to her team’s tougher as­sign­ments.

With two min­utes re­main­ing, sec­ond-half sub­sti­tute Mia Lee Chong, who re­placed Aniya Thomp­son at the restart, added a fifth item to cap off the dom­i­nant dis­play for T&T with a right-foot­ed strike in the box to the low­er left cor­ner of the goal past Queza­da.

Speak­ing af­ter the match, a sat­is­fied Rus­sell said, ‘We got five goals, which is very good, but we want­ed a lit­tle more in that third of the field at least, but, de­fen­sive­ly, in tran­si­tion I thought we were re­al­ly good.’

She added, “De­fen­sive­ly, we didn’t get chal­lenged too much, and we knew they would be com­ing and play with the long ball.

“I thought the girls were pre­pared for that, and they dealt with it very well.

“Of­fen­sive­ly, I guessed they got a lit­tle bit com­pla­cent at times, but for the most part, as a col­lec­tive ef­fort, I thought the per­for­mance was good, stat­ed Rus­sell, a for­mer na­tion­al women’s play­er.

Quizzed on her team be­ing too de­pen­dent on Mar­tin, the T&T coach was in­stead full of praise for Mar­tin, 16, de­scrib­ing the Bish­op’s Anstey East High School stu­dent as a ‘spe­cial case.’

"As I said be­fore, every­body knows what Orielle Mar­tin could do, as she is fo­cused, as we have done a lot of work with the men­tal coach­es, as well as it be­ing a team game.’

“So, even if the oth­ers aren’t scor­ing, they are help­ing in oth­er ways,” stat­ed Rus­sell.

Look­ing ahead to the Be­lize clash, Rus­sell said she did not see much of the op­po­nents dur­ing their match but ex­pects that it will not be a walkover for her team.

“But, again, we know what we can do, so we need to stick to our ob­jec­tives de­spite hav­ing a dif­fer­ent game plan for each match and work to­wards an­oth­er re­sult,” end­ed Rus­sell.

In the first match at Cou­va on Mon­day, Hon­duras took the lead in the sixth minute via Ja­z­lyn Sanchez, who con­trolled a cross in the right side of the box and found the back net­ting with a right-foot­ed shot while Alexan­dra Mer­ri­am got the sec­ond in the 90’+2 minute.

The Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Nicaragua, and Puer­to Ri­co are al­so host­ing qual­i­fy­ing groups.

Puer­to Ri­co is the host of Group A, Nicaragua en­ter­tains Group D and E, and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Group C and F.

At the end of the qual­i­fiers, the win­ners of the six groups and the two best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers will ad­vance to the 12-team Fi­nal Round, join­ing the four top-ranked teams in the re­gion: the USA, Cana­da, Mex­i­co, and Haiti.

The 12-team Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Women’s Qual­i­fiers fi­nal round will al­so be played in a group for­mat con­sist­ing of three groups of four teams each from March 31 to April 6, with the three group win­ners and the best sec­ond-placed team qual­i­fy­ing for the FI­FA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Mo­roc­co lat­er this year.

Mon­day’s re­sults

Group B:

Hon­duras 2 (Ja­z­lyn Sanchez 6th, Alexan­dra Mer­ri­am 90+2) vs Be­lize 0

T&T 5 (Orielle Mar­tin 27th, 29th, 60th, 66th, Mia Lee Chong 88th) vs US Vir­gin Is­lands 0

Teams

T&T: 1.Zaira Aimey (GK); 15.Kani­ka Ro­driguez (capt), 17.Mikaela Year­wood, 2.Kait­lyn Dar­went, 3.Hac­k­eemar Goodridge; 6.Che­ri­na Steele, 4.Aniya Thomp­son (9.Mia Lee Chong 46th), 12.Rori Git­tens (8.Ty’kaiya Den­nis 68th); 11.San­ni Wil­son (19.Jay­da Her­bert 46th), 10.Orielle Mar­tin (16.Madi­son Camp­bell 75th), 7.Rashe­da Archer (13.Zye­sha Potts 86th).

Subs not used: 18.Ken­isha Tay­lor (GK), 21.Zofia Richards (GK), 5.Daniel­la Paul, 20.Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt.

Coach: Ayana Rus­sell

USVI: 1.Kyl­iz Os­o­rio (GK) (18.Is­abel­la Queza­da GK 53rd); 11.Yah­se­nah Leo (7.Vig­ga Tyson 13), 4.Makay­la Wal­cott, 14.Lau­ren Jones, 2.Neah Williams (16.Chaney Smith 75th); 8.Camille Cham­bers (capt), 13.Hana Bron­stein (6.Nor­ma Tyson 53rd), 17.An­geli­na Queza­da, 5.Olivia Crike­lair; 9.Mylee Bendinel­li, 10.Gabriel­la Queza­da.

Subs not used: 3.Jade Browne, 12.Ya­dayyah Leo, 15.Taliyah Sex­tius.

Coach: Vin Blaine

OTH­ER RE­SULTS:

Group A:

Puer­to Ri­co 3 vs St Vin­cent and The Grenadines 0

Bermu­da 2 vs Cay­man Is­lands 0

Group C:

Cu­ba 2 vs Guyana 1

Pana­ma 9 vs Turks & Caicos Is­lands 0

Group D

El Sal­vador 9 vs An­guil­la 0

Guatemala 3 vs Cu­raçao 1

Re­main­ing Group B match­es:

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va:

To­day: Wednes­day: US Vir­gin Is­lands vs Hon­duras, 6 pm; Be­lize vs T&T, 8 pm

Fri­day: Be­lize vs US Vir­gin Is­lands 6 pm; T&T vs Honudras, 8 pm