TUCKER, St James — Dunbeholden FC finally clawed their way out of the relegation zone of the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) after outscoring a struggling Montego Bay United (MBU) 3-2 in their relegation zone battle at WesPow Park on Sunday.

MBU missed an early penalty kick and despite coming back from a goal down, were careless in defence allowing the Dunbeholden FC players free runs into their defensive areas.

Demarco Phillips and DeanAndre Thomas scored in the first half for the St Catherine-based team. Deshane Beckford had pulled the home team level, while Narado Brown extended Dunbeholden FC’s lead in the second half though Trevaughn Walker’s first RSPL goal in time added narrowed the gap.

The promoted team’s third victory in their last five games, a period where they picked up 10 points, took them to 23 points and up one place to 10th, a point ahead of 11th place FC Reno, while MBU are stuck at the foot of the table on 19 points, losing four of their last five games.

It was the second straight victory for the promoted Dunbeholden FC over the two-time champions this season, after losing their first game at home and it was a welcomed result for the winners.

“It was a good game,” Dunbeholden FC’s coach Michael Cohen told the Jamaica Observer. “We thought we had put the game away but they came at us in the latter stages and forced us to defend, but that was expected as we are playing away.”

Cohen said the win was “a big boost for us as we fight to stay in the league, but it is still one day at a time”.

Warren Barrett, who was calling the shots on the MBU sidelines, tried to put a positive spin on what appeared to be a season spiralling out of control.

“The good thing, and trying to be positive, is that we have nine games still to be played and that’s 27 points available and if we win them that will allow us to stay up,” he said. “But it’s easier said than done, but it’s up to us the players and coaches to analyse this game and go back to the drawing board.”

Barrett said being in the relegation zone causes its own problems as “when teams are in that position calls seem to go against you and we saw some bad calls today, some were mind boggling but at the end of the day, we still created many scoring chances and did not score”.

MBU have only scored 18 goals in their 24 games, same as fifth-placed Mount Pleasant FA, but Barrett said they were working on changing that. “We did some work in front of the goal this week and we got two goals but missed three and gave up three goals getting caught in transition as we were too open at the back, but we have to stay confident and positive and pass that on to the players and continue to fight.”

Teams: Montego Bay United — Jacomeno Barrett, Kymani Reid (Trevaughn Walker 46th), Lesly St Fleur, Orlando McBayne, Renardo Wellington, Keniel Kirlew, Dwayne Ambusley (Donovan Carey 73rd), Sheldon McCoy, Johann Weatherly, Deshane Beckford, Dino Williams (Nazime Matalie-Grant 59th)

Subs not used: Aian Miller, Nevaun Turner, Jermaine Woozencroft, Shemar Robinson

Booked: Carey (80th)

Dunbeholden FC — Eric Edwards, Jevon Angel, Shaquile Dyer, Andre Dyce, Kimani Bailey, Shevan James, Dasha Satchwell (Morris Mais 83rd), Kemo Gayle, Demarco Phillips (Nickoy Christian 76th), Narado Brown, DeanAndre Thomas

Subs not used: Giovanni Smith, Dwayne Smith, Leon Strickland, Samar Rowe, Rushane Spence

Booked: Edwards (5th), Satchwell (48th)

Referee: Andre Farquharson

Assistant referees: Ojay Duhaney, Garvin Carvalho

Fourth official: Daneon Parchment

Match commissary: Gregory Daley