REIGNING Kashif and Shangai champions BK International Western Tigers and Santos Football Club booked their semifinal spots on Tuesday night with respective quarter-final victories over Winners Connection and Riddim Squad when action in the third annual Mackeson Stout/Digicel Sweet 16 football tournament continued at the Plaisance/Industry Community Centre ground.
In the first match of the evening, Santos found the winning combination to get past Mocha’s Riddim Squad by a 2-1 margin while BK International Western Tigers clawed Linden’s Winners Connection out of the tournament with a 5-0 drubbing.
Holding a physiological advantage over their opponents, Riddim Squad took to the field and within the first 15 minutes of play, dominated the Georgetown based Santos team with wonderful ball possession that resulted in Amos Ramsay having the first shot to Santos’ goal in the 8th minute of play.
Even though Santos who fought to come to grips with their opponents attacking style of play and were out hustled, they still managed to orchestrate a few raids of their own on Riddim Squad’s goal area and it was from one such move that they took the lead.
Their first game hero Quacy John found himself in the perfect position amongst the defence after Riddim Squad’s custodian Donville Stewart had fumbled a corner taken from the right hand side, to place the ball into the back of the net in the 16th minute.
The goal awoke Santos’ drive for success as they became the aggressor while Riddim Squad looked to regroup.
A defence error handed Riddim Squad the equaliser in the 32nd minute before Joel Lloyd snatched the lead back for Santos when he took the ball away from Stewart who received a back pass from one of his defenders and opted to dribble Lloyd instead of kicking the ball away.
The score line did not change after that despite numerous efforts by Riddim Squad who were met by the safe hands of O’Neil Heywood who had a splendid night in between the uprights for Santos.
The feature match was nothing in comparison to the first, as BK International Western Tigers who are on the regrouping stage following the migration of several of their senior players, looked out of sorts even though they dominated their Linden opponents.
The game was brought to a halt within the first 10 minutes, when a Dwayne Ali chipped ball went over Winners Connection custodian Akeem Caesar’s head and across the line before being booted out by one the defenders.
Simultaneously, the lights at the South Easter corner of the ground went out forcing the game to be halted for 15 minutes.
When play resumed, Rawle Gittens of Winners Connection had a point blank shot saved by Tigers’ Derrick Carter while at the other end, a shot from Ali sailed over the cross bar with a hapless looking Caesar out of position.
Realising their opponent’s custodian was not in the frame of mind for the game, BK International Western Tigers launched several unanswered attack on Winners Connection’s goal.
They were rewarded when Nedd Fraser scored in the 11th minute, followed by a Wendell St Hill strike in the 30th minute which left Winners Connection battered and bruised at lemon time.
Four minutes into the second half and Tigers’ skipper Sherman David made it 3-0 for his team when he rose above the defense to head home a corner, after clearing the ball from an open goal mouth when Crater was drawn out of the goal and beaten by Rawle Gittens.
That goal and the fact that Winners Connection found it difficult to find the back of the net, signaled the end of the Linden team’s run in the tournament and it was not a question of who would win the game, but what would be the margin of victory as the Tigers squandered many goal scoring opportunities.
Nevertheless, Gavin Wilson (65th) and Ryan Thomas (86th) scored two more goals for their team who completed the highest margin of victory in the tournament to date and at the same time, set up a semi final clash with Santos, which is set to take place this Sunday at the same venue.
The action will continue tonight with two other quarterfinal matches involving Fruta Conquerors and Golden Stars from 1800h in the opening encounter and host team Bakewell Buxton Stars facing BV/Triumph United who lost their opening match to the now disqualified Flamingo team, from 2000h