Boulevard 0 Devonshire Cougars 3

Two goals from Cashun Brangman in the first ten minutes served notice to Boulevard Blazers, that they were in for a long day at Lord’s yesterday.

Devonshire Cougars have been in fine form and continued to impress from the opening whistle as they dictated play, opening their scoring in the seventh minute. Nyhrobi Carmichael latched onto a free ball just outside the Blazers penalty area and fed a deft pass to Brangman, who beat advancing Blazers keeper, Jahni Shakir, to the ball to slot into an open net.

Three minutes later, a corner by Calin Maybury led to Brangman rising uncontested above the Boulveard defence to nod home from six yards out. The Cougars nearly added a third two minutes later when Carmichael powered a shot from 25 yards that crashed off the crossbar.

Boulveard, who struggled early to find any consistent rhythm, came close in the 33rd minute when Dunnya Taylor’s corner kick skimmed the crossbar. The ball rebounded out to Aldonte Smith, who headed inches wide. In the 40th minute, Smith was again unlucky after he eluded a Blazers defender deep inside the box, but could only watch in frustration as his shot was brilliantly saved by Kioshi Trott.

In the second half, Boulevard tried valiantly to withstand the pressure applied by Cougars. Unfortunately, things unraveled quickly for Blazers as TiaeVince Douglas was sent off by Garrett Swainson in the 50th minute.

Within a minute of Douglas’s dismissal, Cougars had the ball in the back of the net again, courtesy Jameiko Mallory.

The Blazers tried upping their game but could not escape the disadvantage of being a man down. With fatigue setting in, Cougars began launching repeated raids on the Blazers’ goal and were unlucky not to score at least two more.

“We are trying as a team to keep our focus on the field by remaining humble,” Omar Butterfield, the Cougars coach, said. “It’s still early in the season, so we’ve got to continue working harder to get to where we want to be. What we are looking for is weekly improvement and that will only come about if we are being more consistent in our efforts and our approach to the game.”

Blazers coach Shane Powell said: “We are a young team, but we will only get better by our continued bonding and playing together as a team. What we are trying to do moving forward is learning as a team from both our losses and our wins. There are game and life lessons to be learned in both cases.

“We lost our leading goalscorer from last season, so this provides us an opportunity for other guys to step their game up. We’ll be fine as we’ve already had several players who have stepped up their scoring efforts thus far.”

TEAMS

Boulevard: J Shakir — J Williams, A Foggo, Z Stovell, A Famous, N Smith (sub: T Stovell, 84min), T Douglas, A Smith, K Easton (sub:K Smith, 58), K Davis (sub: J Samuels, 75), D Taylor. Substitutes not used: T Butterfield, R Burchall, S Fostin. Booked: N Smith. Sent off: Douglas.

Devonshire Cougars: K Trott — C Maybury, C Brangman, J Mallory, J Butterfield (sub: T Woodley 80), I Mallory (sub J Smith, 53), M Battersbee, N Carmichael (sub: S Pearman, 63), Zeki White, Zeko White, Z Simmons. Substitutes not used: D Simmons, M Steede, C Hardtman.

Referee: G Swainson