Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
HOUSTON (AP) — Rodolph Austin scored two minutes into stoppage time to lift Jamaica over Canada 1-0 in a CONCACAF Gold Cup group stage match on Saturday.
Jamaica improved to 1-0-1 in group play, while Canada dropped to 0-1-1.
The sequence that led to the winning goal began when Jamaica played the ball out to the right wing, and Adrian Mariappa then sent it into the center of the box. Austin shook off his defender and headed it clean past Kyriakos Stamatopoulos.
"Our great spirit and our team spirit is to win," Jamaican technical director Winfried Schaefer said. "It was not a very good match from us, this was clear, but only three points was important."
Jamaica (1-0-1) leads Group B with four points. Canada (0-1-1) has just one point.
Jamaica also had a prime scoring chance in the 27th minute when Kemar Lawrence's left-footed attempt got past Stamatopoulos, but defender David Edgar cleared the ball off the line.
Jamaica's Giles Barnes, playing before his MLS-home fans in Houston, curled a free kick over the blocking wall in the 60th minute, but it ticked off the crossbar.
"Today we had 21 shots, 11 shots to the goal and only one goal. It's not enough but it was no problem today," Schaefer said. "We'll talk today or tomorrow about what was good and what was bad."
Four of Canada's seven shots came in the first 16 minutes.
"The first half for us we had the opportunities but we couldn't put them away," captain Julian De Guzman said. "We weren't able to remain composed up front. In the end we lost a bit of concentration that put us behind in the group."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
