“Terry Delancy Jr scored a hat trick and the Bahamas also received goals from Ricardo McPhee, Jaime Thompson and Lesly St Fleur en route to the win.”
The men’s national soccer team produced a 6-1 win over the Turks and Caicos Islands in an international friendly at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium Saturday night.
Terry Delancy Jr scored a hat trick and the Bahamas also received goals from Ricardo McPhee, Jaime Thompson and Lesly St Fleur en route to the win.
Happy Hall’s long ball over the top found Delancy, who won the one-on-one battle against the keeper when his strike from the edge of the box found the far corner to give the Bahamas an early 1-0 lead.
In the eighth minute, St Fleur operated near the corner and found Delancy with a cross for the assist when he struck home a left-footed goal, his second of the match and a 2-0 lead.
The Bahamas built a 3-0 lead when McPhee scored in minute 40 as the first half came to a close. Troy Pinder’s cross was in place perfectly and McPhee delivered the diving header for a 3-0 lead.
Stevens Derilien had an early opportunity to score for TCI after a miscue on the clearance from Bahamian keeper Valin Bodie, but Bodie came up with the save to preserve the score at the half. The home side controlled the time of possession for much of the match. Offensively, they were able to knock the ball around and support off ball runs to attack efficiently.
Defensively, the Bahamas kept the pressure on the visitors and with the wing backs playing high, disrupted Turks early and often.
The Bahamas opened the second half, still first to the ball in every aspect, but an early goal was erased due to offsides penalty.
TCI had a goal of their own erased by a penalty call when Lenford Singh won possession against Bodie, and backheeled it, however, the infraction wiped away the goal and they remained scoreless.
The Bahamas capitalised moments later when St. Fleur blew by the defense to create another one on one with the keeper. He crossed to Delancey for another assist when he completed the hat trick and gave the Bahamas a 4-0 lead.
St. Fleur just missed scoring a goal of his own when his goal struck the left goal post.
The ball nearly hits a TCI defender and went in for an own goal, but it went just wide.
A goal kick from Turks was headed in the opposite direction by Alex Thompson to win possession, and Jamie Thompson, subbed into the game just over five minutes prior, capitalized to score his first international goal and give the Bahamas a 5-0 lead.
Turks ruined the Bahamas’ clean sheet when Marco Fenelus scored in the 80th minute to make the score 5-1. It was the first goal TCI has ever scored against
St. Fleur finally reached the scoresheet in the 87th minute and capped the game’s scoring when he released in behind the TCI defence and delivered a chip to TCI keeper for the game’s final 6-1 margin.
