The Lady Jaguars opened their group-F campaign in the 2022 Concacaf Women’s U20 Championship on a positive note, defeating Honduras 2-0 yesterday at the Estadio Olimpico Felix Sanchez, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
It was a competitive engagement which was evident by the resulting statistics, as both conversions occurred in the dying embers of either period.
Samantha Banfield broke the deadlock on the cusp of the halftime interval compliments of a 45th+4 minute conversion. Audrey Narine sealed the result, as she found the back of the net in the 90th+1 minute.
Guyana’s starting XI which featured two homegrown players consisted of Arden LaRose, Jessica Myers, Hasha Holder, Savannah Mordesir-Singh, Rory Scott, Banfield, Kiana Khedoo, Jenea Knight, Jessica Jagdeo, Shamya Daniels, and Narine.
Every statistical category was ruled by the Central Americans except the most important stat which was goals scored. In terms of attempts, the Hondurans amassed 15, with nine being on target. On the other side, Guyana tallied recorded four shots on target from seven attempts.
Continuing in the same vein, 293 passes at an accuracy rate of 56% were registered by Honduras. This translated into an overall possession stat of 55%. For Guyana, 253 passes at a 49% conversion rate were achieved. Similarly, this led to Honduras accumulating 8 corners to Guyana’s four.
The Guyanese will now turn their attention to Mexico tomorrow at 19:00hrs at the same venue, before closing out their group campaign at 16:00hrs against Panama on March 2nd.
Guyana was eliminated at the quarterfinal stage to Haiti via a 0-3 scoreline in their previous outing in the 2020 edition. The Lady Jaguars finished the previous tournament with a record of three wins and two losses.
They defeated Nicaragua (3-1, group stage), Puerto Rico (2-1, group stage), and Cayman Islands (2-0, round of 16 stage). They went down to Mexico (0-3, group stage) and Haiti (0-3, quarterfinal stage).
Meanwhile, group E comprises the United States, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Nicaragua, while group G contains Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador and St. Kitts and Nevis. On the other hand, group H features Haiti, Jamaica, Guatemala, and Cuba.
The top three teams from each pool will advance to the round of 16 stage. They will be joined by the respective group winners of the qualifying section. They are Bermuda (Group-A), Cayman Islands (Group-B), Curacao (Group-C), and Suriname (Group-D).
The top three teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup and will join the host nation, Costa Rica, as the CONCACAF representatives.
