Although they suffered a close defeat to an excellent Honduran squad, the Cayman Islands girls football team acquitted themselves nicely on the pitch over the past week during the CONCACAF Under-15 Girls Championship tournament.
Before losing a tight 2-3 match Wednesday evening in the quarterfinals stage, our girls easily handled opponents in group play — overwhelming British Virgin Islands (5-0), Bahamas (4-1) and Curacao (6-0).
Cayman’s Chelsea Green scored six goals in those three games, including a hat trick against Curacao, and was named “girl of the match” three consecutive times. Cumulatively, in the four games that Cayman played, they scored 17 goals and gave up only 4.
Given the highly competitive natures of our young sportswomen and head coach Ruben Flores, we’re sure they are still smarting from the team’s elimination Wednesday. Even though it may be small consolation to them at the moment, this Editorial Board believes we speak for the entire Cayman community when we offer our congratulations for the performances by Coach Flores, Ms. Green and other key players, such as Brianna Poy Fong, Deondra Kelly, Halle Medina, Derricka Neysmith, Jasmine Powery, Lauren Scott and Sabrina Suberan — just to name a few who have appeared in the Compass’s ongoing news coverage of the tournament.
Before the tournament began, Coach Flores and his players said they felt well-prepared to show that they could compete against any of the squads from the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, and — as the results now demonstrate — they were right.
Coach Flores pointed out that, while the team in its current state is already formidable, it is only going to get better with age, as his players continue to mature.
“Half of this group is so young that they can compete again in two more tournaments,” he said. “That is what is so promising.”
Just because Cayman’s team is finished playing in this particular tournament doesn’t mean that the fun and excitement is over for spectators. Far from it: Tonight at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex, Trinidad takes on Canada, then Honduras plays Haiti for a shot at the championship match Sunday, also at the Truman Bodden complex.
Despite the rain that has fallen consistently over the past week (and Caymanians’ legendary aversion to precipitation), residents have turned out in full force to cheer on our national team, as well as the players on the other teams. We expect, and hope, that trend will continue through the weekend for the pivotal matches.
In total, the tournament has included some 280 players, plus coaches, delegates, referees, CONCACAF staffers, family members and fans — who have been filling hotel rooms in Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac, renting cars and purchasing food and drink, to the benefit of our local merchants and the economy, according to numbers provided by Sharon Roulstone, chairwoman for the local tournament committee.
The U-15 girls’ tournament is the third CONCACAF tournament Cayman has hosted in the past year, in addition to events for the U-15 boys and U-20 girls.
While CONCACAF and Cayman Islands Football Association President Jeffrey Webb has said, understandably, there are no guarantees that our country will continue to reap the windfall of hosting such tournaments, we can declare unequivocally that our teams and our people have put their best feet forward, both on the field and off, and have made Cayman proud.
Related Videos
