Jamaica's goalscorer Ryon Johnson (right) celebrates with teammate Adrian Reid after finding the back of the net in their CONCACAF Gold Cup match against Honduras at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. Jamaica won 1-0. - AP

HARRISON, New Jersey:

A dominant first half display, capped by a spectacular goal from Ryan Johnson, led Jamaica to a 1-0 win over Honduras in their CONCACAF Gold Cup encounter at the Red Bull Arena in the Meadowlands last night.

Jamaica also missed a penalty kick, which was taken by Johnson at the 70th minute.

Victory ensured Jamaica a perfect three wins from three games in the preliminaries, totalling nine points and the group's top position, as they levelled their Gold Cup wins against Honduras to two apiece in four meetings.

Jamaica will now move into the quarter-finals with a game against the runner-up of Group C, which will be completed tonight.

Honduras placed second in the group on four points, the same as Guatemala, which beat Grenada 4-0 in the opening game to claim third in Group B.

The Hondurans have a better goal difference, after beating Grenada 7-1. Both Central American teams had played to a 0-0 draw.

In Group C, Panama, with two wins, lead with six points, followed by the United States and Canada, with three points apiece.

Panama will tackle Canada, while the Americans will be up against Caribbean team Guadeloupe, which has been beaten in all their matches.

Prior to this encounter, Jamaica's head coach, Theodore Whitmore, had said he is not worried about facing the US, a team the Jamaicans have never beaten.

"It doesn't really matter," said a confident Whitmore. "We came here on a mission ... and it would be very interesting to see a Jamaica-US encounter.

"I think the Boyz are looking forward to it because we have a lot of players now playing in the MLS (United States Major League Soccer) and most of them and the US players are friends, so it would be very interesting," he added.

A revamped Jamaica team, minus six starters from the previous game win against Guatemala, put on a dazzling display in the first half to wrest the early advantage from Honduras.

Showing absolutely no sign of nerves, Jamaica outshone their Group B rivals with skill, pace and desire, creating numerous scoring opportunities while conceding nothing in defence.

Playing with oozing confidence and poise, Jamaica went on the goal hunt early and often with slick passing and movement.

The first near miss came in the third minute, when Dane Richards lost control of the ball with only Honduran goalkeeper Orlin Vallecillo to beat.

In the seventh, striker Johnson shot wide from 20 yards, but the best opportunity came in the 32nd minute when playmaker Keammar Daley played a wonderful through ball to Richards. The speedy forward curled a lovely chip to the far post. Honduras' botched clearance was met by a thunderous right foot shot from advancing Jevaughn Watson, but that was blocked and cleared.

Yet Jamaica would not be denied much longer. Johnson, who had struggled with his goal-to-chances conversion rate in the first two games, made amends with a superb strike in the 36th minute.

He collected a pass from Daley in the Honduras defensive third, skipped a tackle, before rifling a rocket left-footer that crashed on to the crossbar, ricocheted off Vallecillo's back and bounced into the net to silence the overwhelmingly partisan Honduran crowd.

The Reggae Boyz extended their dominance into the second half and held the upper hand up to the 70th minute, when they got a glorious chance to double their lead and kill off the match, when Johnson took a pass of Dane Richards and raced into the penalty box, where he was cut down by Osman Chavez.

El Salvadorean referee, Joel Aguilar, pointed to the penalty spot, following which the Honduran supporters at that end of the pitch began hurling objects on to the field. The match was halted for some time because of this act.

Johnson then demanded the kick and held his head as the shot was saved by Noel Valladares, diving low to his left.

Honduras, now given a lifeline, began pressing forward and held the dominant role for much of the remaining minutes, with the Jamaica team tiring and the substitutes unable to change the trend.

However, they were not able to break through the Jamaican defence to create any clear scoring chances, even though they significantly increased their shooting activity. Ramon Nunes led the kicking from outside the area, but there was hardly a shot that troubled goalie Dwayne Miller, one of six changes to the Jamaica starting line-up.

If anything, with no scrapping of yellow cards at the end of the preliminaries, the Jamaicans might have been concerned about the flurry of bookings received towards the end of the contest, with Jevaughn Watson, Demar Phillips, Daley and Navion Boyd going in the referee's book.