ST MICHAEL WEST clinched a spot in the quarter-finals after they convincingly brushed aside St Lucy 3-1 when the round of 16 in the David Thompson Memorial Constituency Councils Football Classic continued at Passage Road on Wednesday night.
A Shanniel Marshall brace, and a strike from Stephen Carrington, proved more than enough to cancel out a Kemar Chase penalty for St Lucy, as the men from St Michael eased into the final eight.
Meanwhile, in the earlier encounter, St Michael South dispatched St James South by an emphatic 3-0 scoreline. Second-half strikes from DeCarlo Jemmott, Kyle Gibson and Shaquille Boyce in the 70th, 85th and 93rd minutes, respectively, propelled the St Michael side into the lottery quarter-final draw, while St James South will be left to ponder where it all went wrong following a tepid second half display.
A frenetic start between the two sides seemed par for the course at this stage of the competition, as both teams knew the consequences of losing in the knockout stages.
Early half-chances went begging at both ends as the game was taking shape, but it was St Michael West who seized the momentum with a fifth-minute opener. A defensive lapse was quickly seized by the alert Shaniel Marshall as he pinched possession off a St Lucy boot, deep in their own territory. The forward wasted no time in racing into the area, before calmly slotting past Ivan Griffith to make it 1-0.
Opportunity
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A free kick down the left gave St Michael West the opportunity to swing a set piece into the penalty area in their hunt for a second goal. Marshall met the pass and glanced it into the bottom corner, despite the best efforts of the custodian.
St Lucy, to their credit, continued to push despite being two goals down and eventually carved a route back into the game, when they were awarded a penalty following a harsh tackle inside the penalty area. Captain Kemar Chase confidently stepped up, slotting into the bottom right corner to pull his side back into the encounter.
St Michael West restored their two-goal cushion late in the game, though, following another defensive blunder from St Lucy. A corner whipped into the area saw Griffith fight through a crowd in an attempt to collect the cross.
However, the goalie was unable to gather the ball cleanly, which afforded Carrington the split-second he needed to volley a first-time shot home. (ML)
