TORON­TO – Ja­maica’s Reg­gae Girls failed in their quest for a spot at next year’s Paris Olympics, when they went down 2-1 to Cana­da in the cru­cial sec­ond leg of the CON­CA­CAF Olympic Play­off on Tues­day in Cana­da.

The Caribbean pow­er­hous­es took the lead just af­ter the half-hour mark at BMO Field through Tot­ten­ham Hot­spurs’ Drew Spence but goals from Ar­se­nal’s Cloé La­casse and Jor­dyn Huitema led Cana­da’s come­back.

The vic­to­ry, which fol­lowed up their 2-0 re­sult in the first leg in Kingston last week, saw the Cana­di­ans book their spot in the Paris show­piece next year and al­so qual­i­fy au­to­mat­i­cal­ly for the CON­CA­CAF Women’s Gold Cup, al­so sched­uled for next year.

For Ja­maica, they missed out on be­com­ing the first Caribbean side to reach the Olympic Games, and will now fall in­to the on­go­ing Gold Cup qual­i­fiers where they will cam­paign in Group B of League against Pana­ma and Guatemala.

Ja­maica start­ed bright­ly and were re­ward­ed in the 33rd minute when the 30-year-old Spence drilled a bril­liant free kick past goal­keep­er Kailen Sheri­dan from 22 yards out.

How­ev­er, Ja­maica were then forced to ride their luck, the cross­bar com­ing to de­fend­er Deneisha Black­wood’s aid as she tried to clear a cor­ner in the 36th and goal­keep­er Re­bec­ca Spencer tip­ping Ash­ley Lawrence’s long range dri­ve, al­so on­to the cross­bar mo­ments lat­er.

The equalis­er came sec­onds lat­er, how­ev­er, La­casse find­ing her­self loose­ly marked in­side the six-yard box to nod home Adri­ana Leon’s cor­ner.

With the game lev­el at the break but with the mo­men­tum in the home side’s favour, Ja­maica con­ced­ed ear­ly in the sec­ond half to find them­selves trail­ing.

Lawrence got down the right side, evad­ed a poor chal­lenge from Black­wood be­fore send­ing a cross in­to the area for half-time sub­sti­tute Huitema to head past Spencer in the 50th minute.

No clear cut chances came Ja­maica’s way there­after but Spencer was called in­to ac­tion in stop­page time at the end to save from the feet of sub­sti­tute Si­mi Awu­jo, and pre­vent Cana­da ex­tend­ing the score­line.

CMC

Se­lect­ed re­sults

League A

(Group A)

At the Es­ta­dio Hi­dal­go, PACHU­CA:

Mex­i­co beat Trinidad and To­ba­go 6-0

League B

(Group C)

At the Es­ta­dio Olímpi­co Félix Sánchez, SAN­TO DOMIN­GO:

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic beat Bar­ba­dos 3-0

At the Arnos Vale Sta­di­um, KINGSTOWN:

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines lost to Bermu­da 4-0

League C

(Group B)

Stade Pierre-Alik­er, FORT-DE-FRANCE:

Guade­loupe lost to St Lu­cia 5-1