Paragon women and De­fence Force men cap­tured their re­spec­tive di­vi­sion­al ti­tles when the T&T Hock­ey Board 2025 Out­door Sea­son flicked off with the Amer­i­can-Style (Sev­en-A-Side) Tour­na­ment at the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre, Or­ange Grove Road, Tacarigua, on Sat­ur­day (March 22).

It was the first out­door sea­son open­ing tour­na­ment to be played at the venue since 2019, when the venue was closed for the re­lay­ing of the As­tro­Turf sur­face.

In the Women’s Open Di­vi­sion, Paragon got the bet­ter of pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en Mag­no­lias 3-1 via a penal­ty-strokes shoot-out af­ter both teams had bat­tled to a 1-1 draw in their fi­nal.

Fe­li­cia King-Ash­by had giv­en Paragon a first-minute lead, but with­in two min­utes, Saman­tha Olton got Mag­no­lias lev­el, af­ter which both teams failed to find the match-win­ner in reg­u­la­tion time.

Ear­li­er in the semi­fi­nals, Paragon al­so won on penal­ty-strokes shoot-out, 4-3, over the Malvern/Notre Dame com­bi­na­tion af­ter an­oth­er 1-1 draw with King-Ash­by and Dana-Lee De Gannes the scor­ers for their re­spec­tive teams, while Mag­no­lias thrashed Har­vard Check­ers 7-0.

For Mag­no­lias, Kait­lyn Olton (3rd, 5th) and Robyn Dash (5th, 13th) fired in two goals each, with Saman­tha Olton (1st), Sa­van­nah De Fre­itas (4th), and Melis­sa John­son (11th) adding one apiece.

This was af­ter Mag­no­lias had topped the six-team round-robin se­ries with a max­i­mum of 15 points from their five wins from as many match­es, while Paragon was sec­ond with nine points from four match­es, the same as third-placed Malvern/Notre Dame, af­ter both teams opt­ed against fac­ing off in their fi­nal round-robin match, which pre­viewed their semi­fi­nal meet­ing.

The Men’s Open fi­nal was al­so de­cid­ed via the penal­ty-stroke shoot-out route, with De­fence Force ek­ing out a 1-0 tri­umph over Malvern. thanks to Mick­el Pierre’s con­ver­sion.

This af­ter Shaquille Daniel and Dy­lan Fran­cis missed their ef­forts from the spot for the even­tu­al win­ners, while the trio of Shawn Phillip, Jo­van Wren and Tariq Mar­cano failed to con­vert for Malvern.

The Army/Coast Guard booked their spot in the fi­nal via a com­fort­able 4-0 spank­ing of Po­lice, with Tarell Singh scor­ing the open­er in the sec­ond minute and the fi­nal goal in the 15th, while his broth­er Tariq Singh (4th) and Pierre (10th) al­so net­ted, and in the oth­er semi­fi­nal, Malvern won 2-0 on penal­ty strokes shoot-out over Queen’s Park af­ter a 0-0 full-time score.

When the Round-Robin phase took place, De­fence Force topped Group A with four wins from as many match­es for a max­i­mum of 12 points, three more than fel­low semi­fi­nal­ists Queen’s Park Crick­et Club, while Malvern topped Group A with three wins from three match­es and a max­i­mum of nine points, five more than run­ner-up Po­lice.

Pri­or to the match­es, the day’s ac­tiv­i­ties be­gan with open­ing re­marks from T&THB Pres­i­dent Willard Har­ris and a grand walk-past of par­tic­i­pat­ing teams in­clu­sive of the most re­cent na­tion­al teams who com­pet­ed at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge in Bar­ba­dos ear­li­er this month, at which the men won gold to qual­i­fy for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay in Au­gust, while the women end­ed in the fourth spot.

T&THB Open Day Amer­i­can Style

(Sev­en-A-Side) re­sults

Fi­nal Round Robin stand­ings

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

Mag­no­lias*5*5*0*0*18*1*15

Paragon*4*3*0*1*13*2*9

Malvern/Dames*4*3*0*1*7*3*9

Har­vard Check­ers*5*1*1*3*2*9*4

Po­lice*5*1*0*4*4*15*3

Ven­tures/UWI*5*0*1*4*1*15*1

Women's Re­sults

Women's semi­fi­nals

Mag­no­lias 7 (Kait­lyn Olton 3rd, 5th, Robyn Dash 5th, 13th, Saman­tha Olton 1st, Sa­van­nah De Fre­itas 4th, Melis­sa John­son 11th) vs Har­vard Check­ers 0

Paragon 1 (Fe­li­cia King-Ash­by) vs Malvern/Dames 1 (Dana-Lee De Gannes) - Paragon won 4-3 on penal­ty shoot-out

Women's fi­nal

Mag­no­lias 1 (Saman­tha Olton 3rd) vs Paragon 1 (Fe­li­cia King-Ash­by 1st) - Paragon won 3-1 on penal­ty shoot-out

Men's re­sults

Group A

Fi­nal Group A stand­ings

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

De­fence Force*4*4*0*0*10*0*12

QPCC*4*3*0*1*10*2*9

UWI*4*1*0*3*4*7*3

Carib*4*1*0*3*2*8*3

Fa­ti­ma*4*1*0*3*1*10*3

Group B

Malvern 3 vs Paragon 0

Malvern 4 vs Notre Dame 0

Notre Dame 4 vs Paragon 2

Malvern 1 vs Po­lice 0

Paragon 0 vs Po­lice 0

Po­lice 4 vs Notre Dame 1

Group B stand­ings

Malvern*3*3*0*8*0*9

Po­lice*3*1*1*1*4*2*4

Notre Dame3*1*0*2*5*10*3

Paragon*3*0*1*2*2*7*1

Men's semi­fi­nals

De­fence Force 4 (Tarell Singh 2nd, 15th, Tariq Singh 4th, Mick­el Pierre 10th) vs Po­lice 0

Malvern 0 vs QPCC 0 - Malvern 2-0 via penal­ty shoot-out

Men's fi­nal

De­fence Force 1 (Christo­pher Mc Kie 12th) vs Malvern 1 (Tyrese Ben­jamin 15th)- De­fence Force won 1-0 penal­ty shoot-out