Weymouth Wales’ Hadan Holligan (right) dishing off before Pinelands’ Jerome Lynch can make a challenge for the ball.

UWI, Wales into Champions Cup semis

 

 
Although there was not much precipitation on the land, it rained goals in Wildey on Saturday night as there were 16 between two games as the quarterfinals of the Banks Beer Champions Cup got off the ground at the Barbados Football Association’s astro turf. 
 
With only Digicel Premier League teams left at this stage of the competition, Weymouth Wales and the University of the West Indies came away as winners, both taking two-goal wins over their respective opponents.
 
The evening’s first game saw Wales taking a six-four win over relegation-bound Lumisol Technology Inc. Pinelands, who played the game of their life in their first fixture since laying to rest their Head Coach, Randolph Cox. The first half did not go very well for Pinelands as they were down by four goals just about 20 minutes into the exchange. The hazardous Hadan Holligan was the first to find the nets and he did so in the fourth minute to put Wales ahead. Malcolm Marshall made it two on only the seventh minute, while Jadai Clarke had Pinelands in a world of hurt with a third in the 11th.
 
It was only the 21st minute when Kemar Headley made it four-nil much to the dismay of Pinelands. However, at the behest of Fernando Best who did his best to motivate the team from the technical area, Pinelands lifted their heads up and decided to make Wales work for the win. Tito Jones began the comeback for Pinelands, finishing off a witty one-two play in the box which saw the ball being pushed from the middle to Jones on the right of the area. Wales took the lead back to four when Clarke got a second goal in the 43rd minute but Pinelands got another the very next minute, compliments Jamar Perch who cleaned up his own rebound after Bentley Springer failed to hold on the ball after stopping the first shot.
 
Just about 10 minutes into the second half, Headley got a brace of his own when he beat the Pinelands custodian in the 56th for their final goal. Although it would not tip the scales in their favour, Pinelands had the final say with two more good goals. Just after Springer saved an Arantees Lawrence penalty that could have seen them finishing even closer, Keith Warner sent a lovely lob into the box to find the head of Shane Welch in the 63rd, and Welch made no mistakes with the shot to score his team’s third goal. Warner got himself on the cards as well, scoring the last goal for Pinelands.
 
Current top-tier leaders, UWI made their way into the semis with a four-two win over Clayton’s Kola Tonic Notre Dame in the second game on the night. It looked as though it was going to be an all-out blanking for the other team in the red as UWI had a four-nil lead well over an hour into the clash, however, the Dames got two consolation goals to save a bit of face.
 
Half-hour in, Mario Harte rocked the nets to see the Blackbirds to a one-nil lead into the break. Going the other way, Harte added a second in the 53rd minute to pave the way for Diquan Adamson to beat the Dames keeper just five minutes after. Another 10 minutes passed before Jairo Lombardo made it four for UWI (68th). However, the Dames found their legs in the 78th when Dwayne Mars began the fight-back. The surge came a bit too late and Ronaldo Newton’s 92nd-minute goal was not enough to make a major impact on the result.
 
 

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