CATHERINE HALL, St James — Pride will be at stake today for the Jamaican Women’s Under-17 team when they take on dethroned champions, the United States of America, in the consolation game of the CONCACAF Championship in the opening match of the final double-header at the Montego Bay Sports Complex, starting at 3:00 pm.

Jamaica and the USA, winners of their respective first-round groups, were beaten in Thursday’s semi-finals by Canada and Mexico, respectively, and these winners will contest today’s final, as well as join host Costa Rica as the CONCACAF representatives in next March’s FIFA Women’s Under-17 World Cup.

Canada, who bounced back nicely from their first loss of the competition to the USA three days earlier, have qualified for all four FIFA Under-17 World Cups, while Mexico will be in their third.

Prior to this the Jamaicans were unbeaten in six of their last seven games in the Under-17 tournament, but had never beaten the Canadians and Thursday’s loss was the fourth-straight to Canada, after going down 4-3 in 2008, 4-1 in 2010, and 4-0 last year.

Five players scored for Canada on Thursday — Marie Metivier in the fourth minute, Emily Borgmann in the 27th, captain Jessie Flemming in the 30th, Sarah Kinzner in the 48th minute, and Marie Leveseur in the 70th minute.

After promising much and attracting near full houses for the last two of their four games, the Jamaicans were brought back to earth hammered 5-0 by Canada, while two-time winners the USA were shocked in the first game, losing 4-2 on penalty kicks by Mexico after they had played to a 1-1 regulation draw.

Briana Woodhall’s fifth-minute goal for Mexico was the first time since 2008 that the USA were conceding a goal in a CONCACAF competition, since they gave up a 72nd-minute goal to Costa Rica in a 4-1 win, a span of 13 games and 1,223 minutes.

Today, Jamaica’s head coach Merron Gordon is hoping his charges will be able to shake off Thursday’s humiliating loss that left several of the girls in tears, and play for pride.

Gordon told the Jamaica Observer Thursday that they will not be backing down. “We will use our strongest team as we want to get some pride out of this,” he said, pointing out that all but one player, backup goalkeeper Lotteafa Clarke, had played in the tournament. “We want as much exposure out of this as possible.”

Gordon said he was hoping that pride will help his young charges bounce back after Canada had 25 shots at goal to their six and forced 14 corners to Jamaica’s two.

“These are young girls and I know they are feeling bad because they feel they let down the nation, but it’s our job to go there and give them the confidence as the mighty United States is also out and not going to the World Cup, so hopefully we can use this to motivate them,” Gordon said.

Meanwhile, he had no excuses for his team’s loss, saying bluntly. “Today we were really outclassed, I have to be honest.” And while not blaming the team’s approach, he added, “We told them to press (attack) the ball, (but) we did not go to the ball quickly enough, conceded two early goals and that put us on the back foot and from there it was just terrible for the rest of the day.”

It was never the plan to allow Canada to dominate the game the way they did, “but the first goal set them back and they started thinking negatively, and not wanting to concede space behind them, started backing off”.

After their big performance against the USA, Mexico will fancy their chances of lifting the CONCACAF title for the first time.

Goalkeeper Emily Alvarado came up big on Thursday, saving two USA penalty kicks after their defence had frustrated the Americans for most of the game.

In the penalty kicks, Rebeca Bernal, Eva Gonzales, Miriam Garcia, and Arlett Tovar all scored, while Tegan McGrady and Mallory Pugh scored for the USA.