Old Road Survive 5Ps Scare to Advance to Semis

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Football

Thursday, 06 September 2012 23:04

By caribarena news

Antigua St. John’s - Old Road, the  football champions of Antigua & Barbuda, were forced to stave-off stern test from Wadadli 5Ps before they emerged winners after a nerve-wracking penalty shootout to advance to Saturday’s finals of the Warriors Cup 2012 tournament.

On a night of high drama tinged with controversy, Old Road had to convert seven penalties during and after full time to secure a come-from-behind win against their Second Division rivals at the John Hughes Playing Field on Thursday.

But the first of the quarter-final double-header between Hoppers and Swetes ended prematurely just before the start of the second-half.

The referee ended the match before the kickoff of the second-half after the Hoppers' goalkeeper Omarie Joseph who was red-carded at half-time for verbally abusing the assistant referee, re-appeared on the field and refused to leave even after the referee asked him to do so. Organisers awarded the game to Swetes who will now advance to the semi-finals.

Old Road’s former national team striker Gayson Gregory, scorer of two spot-kicks, had to convert his first midway through the second-half to cancel out 5Ps Atarie Jackson who also found the net during the penalty shootout.

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Jackson’s close-range conversion from a goal-mouth melee had threatened to cause an upset of gigantic proportion before Gregory restored parity.

Old Road and 5Ps had chances to snatch a late winner, particularly the underdogs, who twice in the same play had shots cleared off the line and even with the goalkeeper stranded.

During the best-of-five shootout, 5Ps Jackson, Adedi Lee, Aivah Guishard, Brandon Thornhill and Javier Browne had their conversions matched by Tash Harris, Gregory, Verton Harris, Roy Yorks and Adrian Lyne.

But when Kelroy Carmichael struck the bar with the first effort in the sudden-death affair, Jolan Willock confidently stepped up to seal the nail-biting win for Old Road, to the relief of his team mates and supporters who celebrated wildly.

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