Anthony Foster, Freelance WriterA HAT-TRICK from striker Dean Thompson led defending champions Bridgeport to a crushing 5-0 victory Denham Town as action continued yesterday in the Pepsi/Sports Plus Manning Cup football competition at Seprod Oval.
Thompson, one of last season's top goalscorers, scored in the 25th, 31st and 62nd minutes.
Mark Newsome, who gave them the lead in the 23rd, and defender Andre Daley in the 75th minute, supported Thompson.
Bridgeport moved to 13 points from five games in Group C, three ahead of second-placed Camperdown (10), Campion (six), St. Catherine (five), Denham Town and Meadowbrook (four each).
Playing on a wet field, Bridgeport strikers Thompson and Newsome squandered a lot of chances in the opening minutes before Newsome opened the scoring with a right-footer from close range.
Newsome, playing centre forward, picked up a ball from midway in the Denham Town half and fought his way through three defenders and into the box before firing powerfully past the diving Nicardo Hamilton.
The first of Thompson's three came when he tapped in a loose ball from inside the six-yard box, which Denham Town defenders failed to clear, the second was when he took a ball from the right-hand corner flag and beat everyone. He completed his hat-trick with a beautiful shot from just inside the area.
Bridgeport's coach, Anthony Patrick, said he was happy with the result despite giving up a lot of easy chances in the first half.
"We are still having problems where senior players are concerned, we left out some of them for today's (yesterday) game and used the bench players," Patrick said.
"We are in good shape for the second round," he said. "We have been using most of our bench players and they have done reasonably well so far, so things look good going into the second round."
Patrick Bennett, coach of Denham Town, believes his team is short on match practice but he still has hopes of a second-round spot.
"Since the rain we have not been training as we should have, we were up against the defending champions and they are a very good team, "Bennett said.
At Duhaney Park, Kingston College, led by a double strike from Akeno Murdoch and one each from national Under-20 player Richard West and Jermaine Pierce, defeated Edith Dalton-James 4-0 and went back into the lead of Group D on 15 points. Trench Town (14), St. George's College (11) and Jonathan Grant (10) are still in contention.
There were two surprise results in Group A yesterday, Excelsior shocked unbeaten Wolmer's 2-1 while Ardenne upset third-places Calabar 2-1.
Excelsior have joined Wolmer's atop the group with 12 points. They are followed by Ardenne (10), Calabar (seven), Ascot (six) and Holy Trinity (four).
