Young Sugar Girls Make Dramatic Comeback in Florida
On the brink of defeat in their opening match of the Concacaf U-15 tournament in Florida, the Under 15 St. Kitts Nevis female team came from 3-1 behind to defeat Belize 4-3 on Monday August 6. St. Kitts and Nevis took the lead in the 5th minute of the match with Tishanie Warner capitalizing on a defensive error by Belize to score the first goal of the match. But Khalydia Velasquez equalized for Belize in the 8th minute of play. A minute later, Belize took the lead through a Shenda Casimiro strike. And then a goalkeeping error by St. Kitts and Nevis lead to a third goal for Belize from the boots of Jiseele Conorque in the 35th minute, ending the first half
Belize went into halftime leading 3-1.
But the young Sugar Girls did not roll over and die and came out in dramatic fashion in the second half to score three unanswered goals. Trishanie Warner scored a second goal to get the party started with a thunderous strike from the corner of the 18 yard box in the “V” of the goal. Warner was the 800m Gold medalist in the 2018 CARIFTA Games for St. Kitts and Nevis. She used her athletic abilities to get pass defenders and created her own space to score a scorcher from distance. Ellie Stokes and captain Jasonna Williams rounded out the great comeback victory for St. Kitts and Nevis.
Coach Jeffrey Hazel lauded the girls for their never say die attitude to come back from 3-1 down to win the match. “Team St. Kitts and Nevis is quite happy for the victory. The girls went out and fought to get the victory. It was a good victory…we were able to make some tactical substitutions during the break and in the second half the girls went out and followed the instructions that the staff would have provided them and were able to be victorious,” the coach said. “Hats off the girls. We saw that they were very motivated to get the victory…the camp is on a very high level,” he added. St. Kitts and Nevis next play the US Virgin Islands.
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