Wolves 1 North Village 5

North Village may have taken a decisive step towards the Premier Division title after comfortably defeating Wolves at Bernard Park on Saturday.

With their nearest challengers Dandy Town losing away at Paget on the same afternoon, the win lifts Village five points clear at the top of the table but coach Cal Dill Jr is remaining humble in the hope of keeping his players focused.

“It was a hard-fought game as Wolves are on the bottom and looking to get some points for survival,” Dill said.

“I told my players at the half that we needed to convert our chances to finish the game off early. We finally settled down and done that in the second half.”

Village made their intentions known early as they forced the Wolves defence into making a desperation clearance in the opening minutes, but the bottom club showed great resistance marshalled by centre half Khiari Sharrieff-Hayward, who made some firm and timely tackles.

However, Village’s persistence paid off when Jai Bean played Seke Spence through and he squeezed his shot into goalkeeper Gatwoine Minors’s near post to open the scoring.

Wolves responded immediately with Jarred Douglas receiving a cross at the back post, but he would shoot feebly at goalkeeper Detre Bell, with Village taking only a 1-0 lead into the interval despite their dominance.

Village started the second half where they had left off and doubled their lead in the 53rd minute when Tre Ming kept his composure after beating Minors to a through ball before side-footing into an empty net from an angle.

Four minutes later, Sharrieff-Hayward’s eagerness got the better of him when he hacked Bean down from behind inside the box to concede a penalty. Bean dusted himself off before sending the Wolves custodian the wrong way.

The Hermitage Road unit never gave in and earned a goal when Bell could only parry Kydan Browne’s firm drive back into play. Torque Outerbridge and a defender chased the rebound with the defender’s attempted clearance ricocheting off Outerbridge and into the back off the net, leaving Bell helpless.

Village continued to press and scored two more goals in short time. Bean had his initial shot blocked before passing the rebound to Ming, who had the easy task of blasting into the net before the overlapping Kyler Knights closed out the scoring when he converted substitute Jalen Harvey’s low cross.

Wolves should have scored a second late in the match when promising youngster Khari Sharrieff played a delicate chip over the top of the defence for substitute Antinori Butterfield to run on to, but his shot was blocked by the advancing Bell.

SCORERS

North Village: Spence 38, Ming 53, 66, Bean 57 pen, Knights 76

Wolves: Outerbridge 60

TEAMS

North Village (4-2-3-1): D Bell 6 — K Knights 6, T Fray 6 (sub: T Harris, 79min), R Sampson 6, Z Jennings 5 (sub: J Harvey, 68 6) — K Harrison 5, S Spence 6 — I Simmons 5 (sub: Jabari Hayward, 77), L Steede 5 (sub: Jabri Hayward, 77), T Ming 7 — J Bean 7. Booked: Knights.

Wolves (4-2-3-1): G Minors 6 — J Martin 6, K Douglas 5, K Sharrieff-Hayward 7 (sub: M McGowan, 76), L Paynter 5 — K Sharrieff 7, M Mello-Cann 6 (sub: S Brown, 68 5) — T Outerbridge 6 (sub: A Butterfield, 76), K Browne 6, J Douglas 6 (sub: D Bothelo, 62 5) — S Wild 5 (sub: K Brangman, 59 5). Booked: Sharrieff-Hayward, Martin.

Referee: J Springer (Barbados).