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Guyana’s ‘Lady Jags’ fall at final hurdle
– lose 3-0 to Bethseda FC of USA
The Guyana Women’s ‘Lady Jags’ football team lost to Bethseda FC of the USA 3-0 in the final of the Turks & Caicos Football Festival.
Both teams had registered comfortable wins in their earlier games against the T&C Select and T&C Under-20 teams, with Guyana winning both of their games 5-0.
Guyana Women’s ‘Lady Jaguars’ football team did there country proud finishing second.
This clash had been highly anticipated since both teams demonstrated a high level of play in previous matches. With the game set for 4:00 pm in hot Turks & Caicos weather, it was always going to be the team with the early advantage and deep bench that would most likely come out with the victory.
Unfortunately for the ‘Lady Jags’, this is exactly what transpired. Just after the game started Bethseda launched an attack down Guyana’s left side where the defence allowed a cross, which was relatively easily headed into the back of the net by the Bethseda FC forward.
With the ‘Lady Jags’ being down so early they immediately regrouped and started fighting back, but the Bethseda FC defence were able to hold them off and launch a few attacks on their own.
Guyana suffered another setback when Kayla DeSouza #8 suffered an injury and had to be taken out for the rest of the game. This was followed shortly after by starting defender Alyssa Budhoo #19 exiting the game with an ankle injury. This led to immediate pressure from the Maryland, USA number one ranked team, spreading the Jags defence and testing the Guyana goalkeeper on numerous occasions.
The half time whistle sounded with the score at 1-0 and it could have been a lot worse, had it not been for the excellent job the coaching staff did with their players, and system of play adjustments and substitutions.
The second half began with Bethseda FC playing a possession game to wear down the Guyanese lasses. This was an effective strategy by their technical staff since Bethseda had a squad of 24 seasoned players at their disposal over the three day tournament while Guyana had a squad of 16, of which two were goalkeepers and four locally-based.
By midway through the second half the ‘Lady Jags’ were playing based on just passion and sheer determination as the heat and injuries, along with playing three games in three days had taken its toll.
Betheseda FC was able to capitalize scoring off of corners in the 78th and 84th minutes for a final score of 3-0.
According to Technical Director Mark Rodrigues, the T&C tournament was a great start for the Guyana Women’s National Programme. “We came into this tournament with the technical staff never having physically seen most of the squad play, and similarly most of the players were meeting each other for the first time only, upon their arrival in the Turks & Caicos Islands”.
Winning their first two games comfortably then turning in the type of performance they displayed against Bethseda FC was very commendable. It should be noted that Bethseda FC is the number one club in Maryland USA and Region I Premiere League runners-up and boast four USA National Olympic Development players in their squad. They are currently preparing for the USA Regional championships where they are favoured to come out on top.
After the game the Guyanese supporters once again swarmed the players with well wishes and words of encouragement. As one fan was overheard saying. ” This is one of the few times recently I feel proud to be Guyanese and was excited to see that this is a Guyana team which represented true GT, all six races that make up Guyana”.
Ashley Rodrigues #9 was awarded the Golden Boot Award as the top goal scorer with five and Alison Heydorn #2 was named the team’s MVP of the Tournament.
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