Waterhouse edged Mount Pleasant Football Academy 1-0 in the first-leg of their Jamaica Premier League (JPL) semi-finals clash on Saturday at the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence at the University of the West Indies.

Former Camperdown schoolboy Manning Cup striker Shaquille Bradford scored the winner in the 79th minute for Waterhouse to hold the advantage going into the second leg, which will be played on Wednesday at the same venue.

Waterhouse were contesting their first match in two weeks, while Mount Pleasant were playing their third within one week. The competition’s format allowed direct passage to the semi-finals for Waterhouse, while Mount Pleasant had to contest two legs of the quarter-finals.

The rules state that the top two teams from the preliminary stage of the competition, earn an automatic spot in the semi-finals, while the teams finishing from fourth to sixth contest the quarter-finals. Waterhouse topped the preliminary round with Cavalier finishing second.

In the quarter-finals, preliminary round third-placed Mount Pleasant defeated sixth-placed Harbour View 4-2 on aggregate after winning the first-leg 3-1 last week Saturday and drawing the second-leg 1-1 on Wednesday.

On Saturday, both Waterhouse and Mount Pleasant created and wasted good scoring opportunities throughout the first half, with Jourdaine Fletcher for Mount Pleasant and Andre Fletcher for Waterhouse having the goalkeepers enacting saves.

Mount Pleasant’s Kesslon Hall also brushed the crossbar with a left-foot shot, after he turned beautifully inside the penalty area to dismiss his marker.

In the second half, Mount Pleasant’s Kavaughn Isaacs troubled goalkeeper Zemioy Nash with a long-range shot and in another close attempt, Hall, inside the six-yard box, failed to connect on a cross by Fletcher from the left.
Waterhouse’s Fletcher again had goalkeeper Shaven Paul saving another good effort from inside the penalty area, with Mount Pleasant’s Hall responding with a near-post shot from Fletcher that goalkeeper Nash had to block.

Paul’s stellar afternoon between the sticks for Mount Pleasant was nullified when he blocked a near-post shot by Bradford but allowed the ball to sneak between his legs and into the goal for Waterhouse’s win. Bradford was scoring his sixth goal of the season, to be joint leading goalscorer with Harbour View’s Oquassa Chong.

Waterhouse’s livewire Denardo Thomas also called on Paul to prevent Mount Pleasant from going further behind, as his shot from just outside the penalty area was blocked by the custodian.

According to Waterhouse’s assistant coach  Damion Gordon, the match was a close encounter, with his players just doing enough to come away with the victory.

“The result speaks for itself. It was a very close game. Earlier, I didn’t think we were in the correct positions defending, especially the wingbacks who were a little bit out of position and we addressed that.

“We have another leg and this was a tight game, so we still need some work in terms of our performance,” Gordon said.
Meanwhile, Mount Pleasant’s coach, Walter Downes, believes his charges missed too many opportunities and singled out the chance that Hall missed at the start of the second half.

“I think we had the majority of the possession and we had chances to score and we didn’t put the chances away and then it becomes difficult. We had a fantastic chance after about an hour and that would have changed the complexity of the game completely,” Downes said.

“It’s a shame that we were sort of relaxed towards the end, but we had the fighting spirit in the last 10 minutes after they scored.

“I think we were the better side and if we had put our chances away earlier on, it would have been a different story. We have one game left, a full 90 minutes to win a football match so we are in it and we are quite confident that we can do it,” Downes concluded.
On Wednesday, the second-leg between Waterhouse and Mount Pleasant will begin at 11:30 am with that between Cavalier and Tivoli Gardens starting at 2:30 pm. Extra-time and penalties will be used should both teams are locked on aggregate at the end of the 90 minutes of regulation time in both matches.