Bermuda 0 Dominican Republic 3

Bermuda suffered the agony of missing out on qualification for the semi-finals of the Concacaf Girls Under-15 Championship in Trinidad & Tobago after losing to Dominican Republic.

In a winners-take-all encounter between the two unbeaten sides in group F, Dominican raced into a three-goal lead at half-time, which they never surrendered to secure top spot.

Giocarla Durán struck a brace, with the other goal coming from Kaylee Lainez for Dominican to progress.

Durán opened the scoring in the 23rd minute when she outmuscled Zelaye Showers, the Bermuda defender, and with referee Saphire Stockman of Costa Rica allowing play to continue, she has the easiest task of slotting the ball past an exposed Nalini Minors.

On the half-hour mark, Durán doubled the lead with her second goal, the striker benefiting from some lovely work done on the left side of attack by Emily Asenjo.

Dominican were 3-0 up a minute before the break, Lainez with a brilliant long-range effort that caught Minors off her line.

Substitute Julliana Martínez could have made it made it 4-0 right at the end, but her effort struck the frame of the goal.

Bermuda coach Don Vickers was disheartened by the lack of concentration from his players during the period in which they conceded goals.

“It was a disappointing ten minutes,” Vickers told The Royal Gazette. “We just struggled to recover from letting in those three goals.

“A mistake led to the first goal, which was tough. Just when we tried to recover from that, we had our difficulties.

“For the second goal it seemed like we had enough players to deal with the ball, and the third one was more like a shot.

“In light of how resilient our defending was throughout the tournament, it was disappointing to let in those goals.

“In the second half, we tried to correct some of the challenges that we were having. I think they held on and continued to fight to the end, so I’m happy about that.”

Bermuda are back in action today, when they feature in a play-off match to determine their final ranking.

“We are playing to make the country proud at this point,” the coach said. “We have to shake off this setback and continue to push on. The good thing about this tournament is that it’s developmental, so everyone gets a chance to feature.

“Inasmuch as we would have loved to progress, it’s still about development. It’s about giving the girls exposure to the international level.”