T&T senior men's hockey squad bowed out of contention for a spot at the 2023 FIH Odisha World Cup in India after a third straight defeat in Pool B of the Pan American Cup at the Prince of Wales Country Club, La Reina, Santiago, Chile on Monday.
Needing to win their final round-robin match against Canada to have a chance at securing the third spot in the four-team pool, the Darren Cowie-coached ‘Calypso Stickmen” put up a brave and spirited effort before falling to a 5-2 defeat.
The loss added to T&T’s 4-3 loss to the USA and a 4-2 result to Mexico in their previous matches.
The Canadians entered the match on the back of a 2-1 loss to the USA after clobbering Mexico 11-1 in their opener and started the brighter of both teams with Oliver Scholfield scoring a field goal in the fifth minute.
T&T goalkeeper Andrey Rocke then pulled off a few stunning saves from penalty-corner set plays to keep his team in the match.
However, Rocke was eventually beaten by Gordon Johnston in the 12th minute as the North Americans doubled their advantage at 2-0.
In a complete reversal to the first quarter, the second 15 minute period saw a much more aggressive T&T as they dominated their opponents from the get-go.
T&T’s persistence brought reward in the 17th minute when captain Akim Toussaint whipped a shot past goalkeeper Antoni Kindler on his first post following a counter-attack spearheaded by England-based Teague Marcano.
And four minutes before the half-time whistle Marcano capped off another fast-break involving Shaquille Daniel and Marcano by firing into the far corner of the goal, off the base of the post to even the contest at 2-2.
The see-saw contest swung back in Canada’s favour in the third period with Johnston scoring in the 36th from another penalty-corner that went through the pads of Rocke, and a 44th-minute penalty-stroke to complete his hat-trick while Matthew Barnett netted in the 40th as they took command of the contest at 5-2.
With the defeat, T&T finished bottom of Pool B without a point while Canada moved to joint top with USA on six points, ahead of the latter’s final pool match with Mexico.
Also on Monday, in Pool A, Chile faced Brazil for second spot ahead of both teams quarterfinal crossover matches.
Argentina defeated Brazil 10-0 and Chile 3-2 to top the three-team pool with maximum six points and secure the automatic semifinal spot.
At the end of round-robin play, the top team from each pool will advance to the main draw semifinals on January 28, while the second and third-placed teams will meet in cross-over quarterfinals to determine the other semifinal qualifiers two days earlier.
The two semifinal winners will then secure the two Pan American spots to the 2023 FIH Odisha World Cup in India.
<Calypso Stickwomen face Chile for semis spot>
T&T women’s hockey team will start as underdogs when they meet Chile from 5.30 pm today in the second of two quarterfinal matches.
This after the Anthony Marcano-coached T&T women ended third in Pool B with three points from three matches, having blanked Peru 2-0 in their second match.
However, the youthful T&T squad were punished 16-0 by the USA in their opener and then closed out pool play with a 13-0 loss to Canada and is expected to face another onslaught against Chile, who after losing 4-0 to Argentina in their Pool A opener beat Uruguay by the same score for the second spot in their pool.
In today’s opening quarterfinal, Canada who ran out 14-0 victors over Peru and went under to USA 3-1 in their other match will fancy their chances against Uruguay from 3 pm.
The winner of the Chile/T&T match will meet USA in
Thursday’s semifinal while
Argentina awaits the Canada/Uruguay winner.
Both semifinal winners and eventual tournament third-placed finisher will qualify to the 2022 Women's FIH Hockey World Cup carded for Terrassa, Spain and Amstelveen, the Netherlands from July 1 to 17.
