Honduras, Mexico advance to CONCACAF semifinals

After a week of surprises and upsets, the CONCACAF Olympic soccer trials finally played to form on the final day of group play Tuesday as both Honduras and Mexico advanced to the tournament semifinals with wins at the Home Depot Center

The Central Americans, needing a victory to keep their Olympic hopes alive, beat Trinidad & Tobago, 2-0, while Mexico, the only unbeaten, untied team in the eight-nation tournament, beat Panama, 1-0, on Erick Torres’ goal in stoppage time.

In Saturday’s semifinals, Mexico, which has scored 11 times in three games, will meet Canada, which gave up just a goal in the tournament, while Honduras will play neighboring El Salvador, which advanced by stunning the U.S. on a dramatic goal late in stoppage time.

Both semifinal winners clinch berths in this summer’s Olympic Games in London, making Monday’s tournament final somewhat anticlimactic.

Mexico’s final group play match was also meaningless, so Coach Luis Fernando Tena had the luxury of beginning the match with several starters on the bench -- among them Chivas’ Marco Fabian, who had a hat trick in Mexico’s first game, and Tigres striker Alan Pulido, who scored three times in the second match.

And Panama keeper Luis Mejia did a marvelous job frustrating Mexico’s second string, especially in an active first half.

Mexico had not gone longer than 44 minutes without a score until Tuesday.

Fabian eventually came on in the 62nd minute but that had little impact on the Mexican offense, which seemed to have little interest in scoring, spending long stretches of the second half kicking the ball around in the midfield, drawing some jeers from the pro-Mexico crowd of 10,061.

But Mexico, which has yet to trail in the tournament, finally ended the drama when Torres, the most dangerous player in the game, broke up the left wing and beat Mejia cleanly.

In Tuesday’s first match, Honduras faced the possibility of elimination, yet it appeared to be uninspired for most of the first half against winless Trinidad. Eddie Hernandez finally got his team on the scoreboard in the 37th minute on a play that started with Wilmer Crisanto sending a low, bending centering pass to the edge of the six-yard box. Antony Lozano managed to get a boot on the ball as he was going to the turf, deflecting it behind him to Hernandez, who headed it in.

Honduras had two great chances to add to that lead in first-half stoppage time, but Trinidadian keeper Andre Marchan -- who had an impressive tournament despite sustaining a mild concussion in the first match -- made a pair of splendid saves to keep the game close.

Trinidad gave up 77 total shots in its three matches.

Honduras made good on another of those in the 70th minute when Hernandez and Lozano hooked up again, Hernandez delivering a neat cross deep into the penalty area to Lozano, who finished it off.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com