Brave Reggae Girlz clipped by Panama
Published:Thursday | October 26, 2023 | 12:09 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
JAMAICA’S SECOND-STRING Reggae Girlz put in a brave performance despite going down 2-1 to hosts Panama in their Concacaf Gold Cup qualifiers at the Estadio Universitario FC in Panama yesterday.
Ricshaya Walker gave the girls a ray of hope after 22 minutes, but an Alika Keene own goal and a late Lineth Cedeno strike denied the Girlz a point.
Panama started brightly and created a few openings but nothing to really trouble Aliyah Morgan in goal.
Jamaica held their own and also had a couple moments going forward before stunning the home team in the 22nd minute when Mikayla Dayes dismantled her marker on the left side before delivering a perfect cross for Walker to turn home.
Panama came back strongly towards the end of the half, however, Riley Tanner’s effort in the 32nd minute was their most threatening moment.
The equaliser would come when Keene headed a cross into her own goal to put the teams level going in at the break.
The Jamaicans were slow out of the blocks in the second half and Panama pushed them onto the backfoot and were only denied a go-ahead goal through the combination of good defending and goalkeeping.
Despite playing on the defensive for most of the half, Jamaica had some promising moves in the last 15 minutes and Davia Richards had a good shot blocked by a defender.
Minutes later, Tanner had a glorious opportunity when she broke loose, but Morgan did well to deny the wily forward.
Morgan then had to stop a spectacular effort from Yomira Pinzon from long range.
However, from the resulting corner, the Reggae Girlz defence failed to clear their lines and Cedeno fired home the loose ball to give Panama the win.