Photo: Omar Palmer breaks through the midfield for Hydel in their Walker Cup quarter finals against Denham Town. Hydel won the game 2-1 courtesy of goals from Stephen Barnett and Nicholas Nelson.
Favourites Hydel advanced to the semi finals of this year’s Walker Cup when they defeated an inexperienced Denham Town High 2-1 at the Constant Spring Mini-Stadium on Friday, despite an early scare from the underdogs.
Denham Town started the game purposefully and could have taken the lead from as early as the second minute of play when captain Junior McGregor outran the Hydel defense before firing a shot at the near post. Hydel goalkeeper, Nicholas Clarke did well to block the fierce effort, but Orlando Brown was unable to make good use of the rebound for Denham Town and the ball eventually went behind for a corner kick.
Denham Town then missed two clear cut opportunities to score. First Tarrique Campbell played in McGregor behind the defense but his shot was too close to Clarke, who got a strong hand to it to save. Shortly after, Brown was played in clear on goal, but shot straight at a grateful Clarke who clutched on to the ball for dear life.
Hydel made Denham Town pay for the profligacy when Stephen Barnett reacted quickest to a spill by Saniyo Salkie after the keeper dropped a long free kick. Barnett poked home to register his 12th goal of the season and put his team 1-0 ahead with 18 minutes on the clock. The Hydel goal was against the run of play as they had been completely outplayed by a fast running Denham Town up to that point.
Denham Town pressed for the equalizer but Hydel grew in confidence after the goal and soon took control of the midfield through Jaleel Chamberlain, Omar Palmer and Dale Reid. The trio provided a calming influence to their team and was able to bring wingers Barnett and Rodari Edwards into the game.
Both teams created more chances but neither was able to find the back of the net before the half time interval.
Hydel brought in striker Nicholas Nelson for Javante Nichols at the start of the second half and the move proved critical as he got the second goal of the game, in Hydel’s first real attacking move of the second half. Salkie failed to hold on to another shot, this time from inside the area and Nelson needed no invitation to stick the ball into the back of the net to give his team a comfortable 2-0 lead in minute 53.
The game drifted towards an uneventful climax as Denham Town seemed to run out of attacking ideas and Hydel was content to just maintain possession of the ball.
Shortly after the fourth official signaled 5 minutes of stoppage time, Howard Williams produced a sparkling effort to pull one back for Denham Town. The smallest player on the pitch rifled his shot into the roof of the net as the Hydel defenders backed off him to make it 2-1 with four minutes of added time left to play.
But there would be no more goals as the Donovan Hayles coached team advanced to Wednesday’s semi-final.
Hayles praised Denham Town’s performance but was happy with the overall team performance of his troops.
“First of all I must say Denham Town team is a very good team. I think they played some very good football in the early part. Football is about moments, Denham Town had their moments is the first opening exchanges and could have gone even two goals up. They didn’t seize their moments, we seized our moment and went one and then confidence came into our team.
“I think we played some really good football, more consistent than we did in the early round and especially when we went two goals up we took control of the game and we were never really in danger.”
Goal scorer Barnett promised to bring his “A” game to the semi-final as Hydel go in hunt of a place in the final.
Hydel will meet Jamaica College who defeated Holy Trinity 4-0 in the day’s late game.
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