PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania – Shamar “Bowza” Nicholson has reflected on Tuesday’s CONCACAF Gold Cup 1-1 result with Curacao with mixed emotions.

The 22-year-old NK Domzale (Slovenia) forward scored his first official goal for Jamaica in the 14th minute, but conspired to miss a number of gilt-edged chances to put the game safely to bed, only for Curacao to steal a point with a Julien Gaari strike in the third minute of time added.

“I feel a bit disappointed, but at the end of the day it’s gone, you can’t change anything, you just have to move forward and learn from this,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, a few hours before the team flew out of Los Angeles to Philadelphia.

“The good thing about it is to find myself with so many good chances, as that is a key thing for me and I’m really happy with that.”

Nicholson and his Reggae Boyz were off to a fast start as they launched a series of attacks which forced Curacao on the back foot with the former Boys’ Town striker being the main tormentor.

He had the crowd in oohs and aahs early on when his fierce shot on goal was deflected inches wide of Eloy Room’s left-hand post for a right-sided corner. From the resulting Kemar Lawrence delivery, Damion Lowe powered a header on target only for a defender to rescue his team with an alert goalline block for another corner.

Je-Vaughn Watson got on the end of that resulting left-sided corner and played the ball back into the centre for the unmarked Nicholson to head powerfully down into the ground and over the horizontal, much to the relief of Room.

The Jamaican pressure was intense and Nicholson again created space to head goalwards, only to be rewarded with the same result of another block by the retreating Curacao defenders, and the danger was finally averted when Watson blasted high at the back post.

The pressure continued to mount and Nicholson was played in at the top of the penalty area and he weighed his option before rifling a grounder past Room, only for the ball to strike the left upright, and the follow-up effort was also blocked by an alert Room.

But the pressure was too much for Curacao and they wilted before the quarter-hour mark when Andre Lewis’s left-footed strike on goal from the edge of the penalty area was redirected into the goal by an alert Nicholson.

Despite the many missed chances, Nicholson thought there were many positives to take from the game, both individually, and collectively.

“To me, it was a good game and we can take all the positives from the game, though we didn’t win, the most important was that we made it to the quarter-finals.”

Having won their group for the third time in their last four appearances at the Gold Cup, the Reggae Boyz are now preparing to face Central American nemesis Panama inside Lincoln Financial Field at 5:30 pm (4:30 pm Jamaica time) on Sunday.

The second game will pit the USA against Curacao two-and-a-half hours later.

The winners of Sunday’s doubleheader will meet in the semi-finals inside Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday, July 3, with the final slated for Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, July 7.

Nicholson believes that his fairly youthful Reggae Boyz aggregation has the potential to go all the way.

“You can see the maturity, you can see the confidence, and game by game you can see that we are improving,” he stated.

But first, the Boyz will have to get past a Panamanian team they haven’t beaten in 10 years. In fact, the Central Americans have won four of the last five meetings between the two countries, including two in Jamaica.

But Nicholson, who hasn’t got the baggage of those, is eagerly awaiting Sunday’s contest with a view to rewriting history.

“Well I’m looking forward [to the game] because I took notes from the game yesterday (Tuesday), and hopefully I can get it right in the quarter-finals.”