CATHERINE HALL, St James — Despite coming up just short in their bid to reach the Jamaica Premier League play-offs, Montego Bay United’s Coach Neider dos Santos was full of praise after his team’s 2-1 victory over Tivoli Gardens at Montego Bay Sports Complex.

Owayne Gordon scored in the 37th minute to give the home team the lead before Daniel Reid added a second in the 50th minute, only two minutes after Josiah Trimmingham missed a penalty.

Tivoli Gardens pulled a goal back, however, when Justin Dunn converted a penalty in the 83rd minute, setting up a tense finish as the Kingston-based team threw everything into attack.

Elsewhere on a dramatic final day of the JPL regular season, Waterhouse FC edged Harbour View FC 1-0 at Waterhouse Stadium to snatch the sixth play-off spot from Montego Bay.

Both Montego Bay and Waterhouse ended the regular season on 43 points but the latter claimed the advantage due to a superior goal difference.

Montego Bay’s 2-1 win on Sunday capped off a brilliant turnaround in form that saw them go unbeaten in their last 10 games — after managing only 15 points in the first round.

“We are very, very proud of this team. I have to compliment the players — every one of them — they did a fantastic second round,” he told the Jamaica Observer during a post-match interview.

“To win the last five games and stay unbeaten for the last 10 [games] was hard. We made up 12 points on Dunbeholden and four points on Waterhouse but it was hard to play under that kind of pressure every game — to play catch up — because you cannot lose, you have to win, win, win. And we did it, sometimes playing against teams with nothing to lose, but that was not the case today. Tivoli is a big side, one of the championship contenders, and we are happy that we were able to beat them twice,” he said.

Though he would have preferred getting a bye to the semi-finals which would have given his players more time to recuperate, Tivoli Gardens’ Coach Jerome Waite was satisfied his team achieved the ultimate objective.

“We can take a lot of positives from this game, and the fact is: We are in the play-offs. And we look forward to the next game.”