T&T Un­der-17 women’s foot­ball team will go in­to their fi­nal match against fel­low un­beat­en Hon­duras in Group B of the Con­ca­caf U-17 Girls Cham­pi­onship Round One Qual­i­fiers just need­ing a point at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va from 8 pm on Fri­day night to top the group and ad­vance to the 12-team Fi­nal Round.

This af­ter the Ayan­na Rus­sell-coached T&T girls fol­lowed up their 5-0 blank­ing of US Vir­gin Is­lands at the same venue on Mon­day night led by a beaver-trick from Orielle Mar­tin, with a 2-0 tri­umph over Be­lize in Wednes­day night's fea­ture match to move to a max­i­mum of six points and a health goal-dif­fer­ence of plus-sev­en.

The Hon­durans al­so main­tained their 100 per cent win­ning record with a 4-0 de­feat of US Vir­gin Is­lands and will al­so fan­cy their chances of top­ping the four-team round-robin group tonight while USI and Be­lize will meet to avoid the wood­en spoon from 6 pm.

Com­ing up a more phys­i­cal op­po­nent in Be­lize, the T&T U-17 women dom­i­nat­ed the ear­ly ex­changes with Mar­tin com­ing clos­est to the open­ing goal when a left-foot­ed blast can­noned off the cross­bar with Be­lize goal­keep­er An­gel­i­ca Lopez in the 27th minute while mid­field­er Rori Git­tens failed to turn home a right-sided cen­tre from Rashee­da Archer from in­side the six-yard box.

Fel­low mid­field­er Che­ri­na Steele even­tu­al­ly broke the dead­lock on the half-hour mark and four min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, Git­tens dou­bled the lead with a first-touch vol­ley in­to the bot­tom left cor­ner of the net off a left-foot­ed cen­tre from Mar­tin on the right flank.

Com­ment­ing on her team's win, Rus­sell said it was al­ways good to come out with the three points and not con­cede.

In ex­plain­ing the clash against what she felt was a much tougher as­sign­ment in Be­lize, Rus­sell, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er, added: "I think the girls fought from start to fin­ish, so we are very con­fi­dent go­ing in­to the game against Hon­duras.

"The move­ment of the ball was much bet­ter tonight (Wednes­day) and the mid­field­er was a bit tighter as well and some of the things we didn't see in the first match and we asked for against Be­lize, we got and we just have to build on that and go to the next game."

With re­gards to her team's readi­ness for the group de­cider against the Cen­tral Amer­i­c­as, Rus­sell boast­ed, "Men­tal­ly, these girls are locked in for any chal­lenge, and we are get­ting bet­ter with each match, so we fo­cus on what we do well.

"We know it's not go­ing to be an easy game, just like tonight (Wednes­day), but we are fo­cus­ing on what we do well, and what we need to do bet­ter.

"They (Hon­duras) are sim­i­lar to Be­lize in terms of us­ing the long balls but are prob­a­bly a bit more phys­i­cal and a lit­tle more or­gan­ised, so I think it will be a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion to­day (Wednes­day)."

Rus­sell not­ed her main con­cern was how quick­ly her strik­ers got the ball say­ing, "Our build-up play was what we ex­pect­ed but at times I think we need­ed to get the ball quick­er to the strik­ers, and if we can get the lit­tle de­tails in the fi­nal third right, then we will be all right."

In the first match at Cou­va on Wednes­day, Hon­duras won 4-0 with Ja­z­lyn Sánchez scor­ing the open­er in the tenth minute be­fore she added an­oth­er in the 16th for a 2-0 lead and her third of the tour­na­ment.

Alexan­dra Mer­ri­am struck a banger from out­side the box in the 54th while Stephany Mer­ca­do got the fourth item in the 68th.

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 U-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.

Wednes­day’s re­sults

Group B:

Hon­duras 4 (Ja­z­lyn Sanchez 10th, 16th, Alexan­dra Mer­ri­am 54th, Stephany Mer­ca­do 68th) vs Be­lize 0

T&T 2 (Che­ri­na Steele 30th, Rori Git­tens 49th) vs Be­lize 0

Teams

T&T: 1. Zaira Aimey (GK), 2. Kait­lyn Dar­went, 3. Hac­k­eemar Goodridge, 4. Aniya Thomp­son (9. Mia Lee Chong 46th), 6. Che­ri­na Steele, 7. Rashe­da Archer (19. Jay­da Her­bert 70th), 8.Ty’kaiya Den­nis, 10. Orielle Mar­tin (16. Madi­son Camp­bell 77th), 12. Rori Git­tens, 15. Kani­ka Ro­driguez (capt), 17. Mikaela Year­wood.

Subs not used: 18. Ken­isha Tay­lor (GK), 21. Zofia Richards (GK), 5. Daniel­la Paul, 11. San­ni Wil­son, 13. Zye­sha Potts, 20. Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt.

Coach: Ayana Rus­sell

Be­lize: 1. An­gel­i­ca Lopez (GK); 2. Michelle Gar­bitt (14. Shanalee Smith 46th), 4. Rhi­an­na Valen­tine, 5.Jasha Bernardez (capt), 7.Ri­ann Acal (20.Alysha Rey­mun­do 78th), 9. Kenya Perez, 10.Bet­sy Perez, 11. Jahx­ann Waight, 13. Marcelie Mar, 15. Kiana Lewis (3. Jas­se­lynn Valen­tine 73), 16. Kather­ine Castil­lo (8. Arel­la Cal 46 [19. Danyel Black 82]).

Subs not used: 12. Za­i­lynn Azue­ta (GK), 6. Digna Flo­res, 17. Mya Mi­ral­da.

Coach: Joseph Waight

Group B stand­ings:

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*FPts

T&T*2*2*0*0*7*0*6

Hon­duras*2*2*0*0*6*0*6

Be­lize*2*0*0*2*0*4*0

USVI*2*0*0*2*0*9*0

Re­main­ing Group B match­es:

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va:

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

Wednes­day's oth­er re­sults:

Group A:

Puer­to Ri­co 1 vs Cay­man Is­lands 0

Bermu­da 5 vs St Vin­cent and the Grenadines 1

Group C:

Cu­ba 5 vs Turks and Caicos Is­lands 0

Pana­ma 3 vs Guyana 2

Group D:

Guatemala 5 vs An­guil­la 0

El Sal­vador 6 vs Cu­raçao 0