PARAMARIBO, Suriname — Midfielder Alanzo Adlam’s clinical 14th minute strike led Jamaica’s Under-23 team to an unconvincing 1-0 win over the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) first round Olympic qualifiers at the Andre Kamperveen Stadium yesterday.

With Suriname having a better goal difference, after beating St Vincent and the Grenadines 3-1 in the evening’s late kick-off, the Young Reggae Boyz will need to beat the hosts on Sunday to win the group and advance to the next phase of CFU qualifying.

The Cayman Islands outfit, which had surrendered meekly in a 5-0 walloping by Suriname on Wednesday, started the brighter of the two teams as they seemed to catch the Jamaicans off-guard.

Jamaica could have gone behind as early as the eighth minute had it not been for faulty finishing by Cayman attacker Mark Ebanks, who booted just high and wide of goalkeeper Andre Blake’s near post after being allowed to settle by a slow moving back four.

Cayman continued to carry the fight to the Jamaicans and reeled off a total of three decent attempts at goal in the first 10 minutes of play.

Jamaica slowly gained composure and took the lead when Adlam and left-back Andrae Campbell combined in a neat series of passes from a free-kick to slice open the flat-footed Cayman defence. Adlam finished off the move by guiding a right-footed grounder past Ramon Sealy in the Cayman goal.

Despite the goal, the Jamaicans struggled to take full control of the match and at times appeared to be too complacent in the face of a fighting display by the Cayman Islands.

The Young Reggae Boyz however, could have stretched the lead in the 35th minute when forward Andre Clennon turned on a dime in the 18-yard box, but his shot went straight into the palms of Sealy.

Just seconds into the second half, Clennon, Romeo Parkes and Jason Johnson exchanged incisive passes to pull apart the Cayman defence, but the latter’s left-footed blast was impressively blocked by Sealy.

Cayman remained a threat in attack and could have drawn level when the referee penalised Blake for reaching outside his box while throwing out a ball. The resultant free-kick from Theron Wood was curled against the crossbar as a relieved Blake stood rooted to the spot.

The Cayman Islands team continued to fight gamely to find the equaliser but it was Jamaica which came closest to scoring nine minutes from time when Clennon’s shot from 10 yards was spectacularly cleared off the line by a back-tracking defender.

After beating St Vincent and the Grenadines 2-0 on Wednesday, the Jamaicans moved to six points, along with Suriname.

The third and final round of matches will be played tomorrow afternoon, with Jamaica set to face the Dutch-speaking hosts in the feature clash to decide which team will advance to the next phase of CFU qualifying.