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Sunday, February 23, 2025

T&T stickwomen book Pan Am Cup spot

by

Nigel Simon
1241 days ago
20211001
Brianna Govia

Brianna Govia

T&T goal­keep­er Ar­resia Sandy made the cru­cial save while Bri­an­na Govia scored on her at­tempt as T&T se­nior women’s hock­ey team bat­tled past Paraguay 4-3 on a sud­den-death penal­ty shoot-out af­ter a 1-1 dead­lock in their 2021 Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge semi­fi­nal on Fri­day.

With the win at the Vil­la Maria del Tri­un­fo Pan Amer­i­can Com­plex, Li­ma, Pe­ru, T&T women earned their spot in Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal against Pe­ru from 4 pm.

Both fi­nal­ists al­so earned the two spots avail­able to next year’s Women’s Pan Am Hock­ey Cup from Jan­u­ary 20 to 30 which will serve as the re­gion’s FIH World Cup qual­i­fi­er.

Com­ing off two straight drawn re­sults in their fi­nal two round-robin match­es against a 2-2 out­come against Paraguay, the 'Ca­lyp­so Stick­women' were ea­ger to get back to win­ning ways and cre­at­ed the first re­al chance of the match through a penal­ty-cor­ner at­tempt from Sha­ni­ah De Fre­itas, which forced goal­keep­er Yan­na Lopez in­to a sprawl­ing save to her right to keep the scores goal­less at the end of the first 15-min­utes quar­ter.

In the sec­ond pe­ri­od, T&T con­tin­ued to en­joy more of the ball but lacked the fi­nal pass to cre­ate any re­al trou­ble for the South Amer­i­cans while at the de­fen­sive end of the field, De Fre­itas, Avion Ash­ton And co-cap­tain Tere­sa Leza­ma kept the op­po­nents qui­et.

Four min­utes in­to the third pe­ri­od, De Fre­itas thought she had fired T&T ahead from a penal­ty cor­ner but the play was waved off by the um­pires.

How­ev­er, three min­utes, lat­er af­ter an­oth­er penal­ty-cor­ner set play start­ed by co-cap­tain Amie Olton, De Fre­itas fi­nal­ly put her team ahead by ham­mer­ing home her ef­fort through a group of three Paraguayan play­ers and Lopez.

That lead last­ed un­til six min­utes in­to the fi­nal quar­ter when Paraguay drew lev­el through a penal­ty-cor­ner set play of their own with Maria Cate­bra pluck­ing the ball out of mid-air to swat it in­to an open net.

Both teams then failed to find a match-win­ner in the re­main­ing min­utes of reg­u­la­tion time, be­fore Govia and Sandy com­bined to se­cure the win for T&T.

T&T went first in the shoot-out with Sa­van­nah De Fre­itas, the old­est of the De Fre­itas scor­ing be­fore Gi­an­in­na Zam­bri­ni replied for Paraguay.

Olton then had the mis­for­tune of see­ing the clock run out on her be­fore her goal could be cred­it­ed to T&T’s penal­ty tal­ly while Agusti­na Sanchez con­vert­ed to put the South Amer­i­cans 2-1 ahead.

Govia then calmed the T&T play­ers nerves by scor­ing her at­tempt be­fore Sandy forced Ana Samu­dio to drag her ef­fort wide of the mark as the scores re­mained lev­el 2-2.

Zene Hen­ry was next up for T&T and she con­vert­ed her at­tempt with rel­a­tive ease while her Paragon club-mate Sandy then de­nied Car­oli­na Ca­cace as T&T took a 3-2 lead.

Brit­tney Hing then wast­ed a chance to clinch the win for the Ca­lyp­so Stick­women af­ter she failed to score her at­tempt while Ivan­na Romero then kept Paraguay alive by scor­ing to lev­el the match at 3-3.

It was now done to sud­den-death at­tempts where Govia again showed her class and com­po­sure in scor­ing past Lopez, be­fore Sandy de­nied Ca­cace for the sec­ond time in as many at­tempts to seal the win and spark of wild cel­e­bra­tions among her team-mates.

Led by coach An­tho­ny “Bumper” Mar­cano, T&T women will have lit­tle time to rest though as they will re­turn to the same venue on Sat­ur­day to face Pe­ru in the fi­nal.

When both teams met on the open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion in round-robin play, T&T won 1-0 on a goal from Govia with the last play of the match.

Pe­ru won their semi­fi­nal 2-0 over Brazil with a goal each from Ana Mocca­gat­ta in the tenth minute, and Ma­ri­na Montes, in the 37th.

Yes­ter­day Re­sults

Semi­fi­nals:

Pe­ru 2 (Ana Mocca­gat­ta 10th, Ma­ri­na Montes 37th) vs Brazil 0

Paraguay 1 (Maria Cate­bra 51st) vs T&T 1 ( Sha­ni­ah De Fre­itas 37th) – T&T won 4-3 on sud­den-death penal­ty shoot-out

To­day's Match­es

Third place: Brazil vs Paraguay, 12 noon

Fi­nal: T&T vs Pe­ru, 4 pm.


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