Lady Jags advance to U-20 Championships’ quarter-finals

The Under-20 Lady Jags Team members are continuing to rewrite Guyanese football history, as they have advanced to the quarterfinal round of the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championships.
These Under-20 ladies on Sunday evening achieved a feat that has never previously been accomplished in women’s football in Guyana when they came up against the ladies from the Cayman Islands — who themselves were making history by making it thus far in the competition — at the Estadio Olimpico Felix Sanchez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
In that encounter, the Lady Jaguars starting XI, consisting of Anessa O’Brien, Jenea Knight, Anaya Johnson, Brianne Desa, Jade Vyfhuis (C), Serena Mc Donald, Tori De Nobrega, Samantha Banfield, Nailah Rowe, Shanice Alfred and Aubrey Narine, controlled possession in the earlier minutes of the encounter, but the Cayman Islands put up a strong front to restrict the Guyanese girls.
However, it all went up in flames for Guyana’s opponents when a long ball came up from the defense and was collected by Nailah Rowe. Crossing the ball in, Shanice Alfred took her shot at the goal from just outside the 6-yard box.
The ball bounced off the side bar and eventually made its way into the net, to record Guyana’s first goal of the encounter in the 24th minute.
The first half of play expired without further incident, but the Cayman Islands returned in the second segment with renewed vigour. Their ramped-up plays made way for more tries at the goal, but Anessa O’Brien jumped and leapt to keep Guyana’s slate clean.
However, in the 55th minute, Aubrey Narine saw an opportunity when the Cayman goalie Satiah Miller squandered the collection just in front of the goal, and Narine executed a perfect toe-in for Guyana’s second goal, the winner of the match.
With the victory, Guyana have now advanced to the quarterfinal segment, and will come up against powerhouses Haiti on Wednesday, March 4.
In a correspondence with media operatives, Head Coach Dr Ivan Joseph shared the threat that Haiti will pose to Guyana’s chances of advancing.
“As we move on to the quarterfinal, Haiti will be another tough match. They’re a team that is physical; athletic; (and are) very, very proficient scorers. Number 10 and Number 7 have scored a bucket full of goals, so they’ve got multiple scoring threats, which will be hard to contain. When you couple that with a sound defensive line, we’ll have our work cut out for us,” Joseph stated.

“We’ve watched the scouting tape, and we’re now in the process of developing a game plan to get them in; but, again, do we have the athletes to really compete? that will be the tale of this game.
“You will look for us to have a low-pressure defense, clearly not the same as when we played Mexico. You have to be able to score, so look for us to find wherever that balance is in the game,” the Head Coach detailed about Guyana’s upcoming game plan.