Ahead of the CONCACAF Championships to be held at the end of August, the U17 team travelled to St Thomas last weekend to compete in a series of friendly matches.

The first game saw the BVI beat their USVI opponents 4-0 on goals from Johari Lacey, Emmanuel Etienne, and Azarni Callwood.

“We won and it sounds pretty easy, but we had to play really well and still have a lot of things to work on ahead of the CONCACAF Tournament” commented Coach Jermain Abrams, who works with the squad along side Richie Morton “we threw away a lot of opportunities to score more on a very windy day!”

In game two, the BVI found themselves down 3-1 and it took some stern words of encouragement from the coaches to focus the boys and get them back into the game, which they did to make the final score 3-3

“they were complacent to start and we had to remind them of life’s tough challenges and tough roads ahead” stated Abrams “we were a man and two goals  down at 3-1 when we reached the second half water break and we were able to tell them that even when you are down on the mat but that’s the time a team shows resilience and that they had to fight to the end, and that’s what they did to pull it back to 3-3”

The goal scorers for the BVI were Rush Broderick and Azarni Callwood (2).

The CONCACAF U17 Championship is scheduled for the end of August and the BVI are in Group A with the Bahamas, Bermuda, Guyana, Bonaire, and St Maarten

The squad that travelled to the USVI included Oliver Henderson, Jaden Abrams, Jadon Abrams, Azarni Callwood, Rush Broderick, Tai Thomas, Gethin Jones, Sean Samuel, Jahari Lacey, Omari Simmons, T’Khay Morton, Orette Kennedy, Samuel Gilford, Emmanuel Etienne, Deshawn Richardson, Denvin Letteen, Nathaniel Williams and Pascal Perkins