Source: Trinidad Guardian
By KENDALL GARCIA
LYNDON ANTOINE scored a first-half brace, as ten-man Grenada defeated host T&T 3-2, in the final match of the Caribbean Football Union Second Round Group G qualifiers, for next year’s Beijing Olympics at the Marvin Lee Stadium, Macoya, yesterday.
Antoine, who also netted in his team’s 2-1 loss to Concacaf Final Round qualifiers Cuba on Thursday at the same venue, opened the scoring with a header from a corner within the first ten minutes.
The lively Antoine doubled Grenada’s lead in the 34th minute when he tapped in a cross from Ariel Jacob for his team to take a comfortable 2-0 lead into the interval.
Five minutes into the second-half, T&T defender Devon Drayton was adjudged to have brought down Marcus Julien in the penalty-area by Mexican referee Marco Moreno and from the resulting spot-kick Shane Rennie beat goalkeeper Andre Charles for to extend the visitors advantage.
However, in the 72nd minute, Grenada was reduced to 10-men after defender Stephen Peters was given his marching orders for a sliding tackle from behind on T&T’s Matthew Bartholomew.
Six minutes after the sending off, Aaron Downing almost pulled a goal back for T&T, but his long range effort slammed into the cross-bar.
However a minute later, substitute Carlyle Mitchell did found the target for T&T when he was on spot to tuck home from close range after goalkeeper Denroy Richardson failed to hold onto a cross-ball.
Bartholomew then set up an interesting final ten minutes when he chested down a left-sided cross, turned on his marker and fired his shot across goalkeeper Richardson and into the far corner for a 3-2 score-line.
But despite coming close on a few more occasions, Grenada defence marshalled by captain Marc Marshall was able to hold T&T at bay and pull off a shock win, which left the host bottom of the standings without a point.
Cuba, the other team in the group secured the lone spot available to the Concacaf Final Round Qualifiers with a 2-1 win over Grenada and a 3-0 shut-out of T&T on Tuesday.