NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano scored a beaver trick to lead T&T’s Ca­lyp­so Stick­men to a 10-1 spank­ing of Cen­tral Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons Guatemala in their Men’s Group B match at the in­au­gur­al Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cups Tour­na­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus Turf, Kingston, Ja­maica, on Mon­day.

With the win, the Akim Tou­s­saint-led T&T men im­proved to a max­i­mum of six points in the eight-team tour­na­ment, lev­el with Paraguay who blanked Cos­ta Ri­ca 6-0, but ahead on goal-dif­fer­ence go­ing in­to their pool de­cider from 6 pm to­day.

Win­ners of their open­er 5-1 over Cos­ta Ri­ca on Mon­day, in the sev­en-day tour­na­ment which serves as the con­ti­nen­tal qual­i­fiers for the Men and Women FIH Hock­ey5s (five-a-side) 16-team World Cup set to be played in Jan­u­ary 2024 in Mus­cat, Oman, the ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­men’ got off to a ‘quick-fire’ start with Mick­ell Pierre open­ing the scor­ing in­side the first minute while Mar­cano, com­ing off a suc­cess­ful sea­son with South­gate Hock­ey Club, help­ing the club to pro­mo­tion to the Out­door Pre­mier Di­vi­sion as well as one of two pro­mo­tion spots in the six-club Eng­land Hock­ey League Adult Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion Two, made it 2-0 in the third minute.

The Guatemalans, who went un­der to Paraguay, 2-1 on Mon­day, man­aged to hold T&T at bay for the next four min­utes of the ten-minute half be­fore Jor­dan Vieira re­sumed the scor­ing with his team’s third, fol­lowed by Jor­dan Reynos in the ninth minute for a com­fort­able 4-0 cush­ion.

Just like the start of the first half, Pierre (11th), and Mar­cano (12th) got T&T’s first items of the sec­ond pe­ri­od to push the lead to 6-0.

It seemed the score­line got to the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans as Car­los Vil­la­toro was then is­sued a green card in the minute to re­duce his team to four play­ers for the next two min­utes, with Tou­s­saint (15th), and Mar­cano, (16th), the lat­ter com­plet­ing his hat trick be­fore Je­re­my Gochez pulled a goal back in the 17th minute for Guatemala to trail 8-1.

Mar­cano, then added a fourth item to his per­son­al tal­ly in the 17th with Shawn Phillips adding an­oth­er to com­plete the scor­ing, and a dom­i­nant dis­play ahead of the fi­nal day of round-robin match­es to­day.

In Pool A, the USA al­so made it two wins from as many match­es, beat­ing Puer­to Ri­co 3-1 while Pana­ma came up against host Ja­maica in the late match.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries in both men’s and women’s com­pe­ti­tions, the teams will con­test cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals with the win­ners of each pool meet­ing the fourth-placed team in the oth­er while the sec­ond and third-placed teams clash as well to de­ter­mine the semi­fi­nal­ists.

From the semi­fi­nals, the two win­ners will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­offs.

The men’s teams to qual­i­fy so far for the World Cup are Bel­gium, Hol­land, and Poland (Eu­rope), and Egypt, Kenya, and Nige­ria (Africa) along with host Oman, while Ocea­nia and Asia are yet to stage their qual­i­fiers from which three na­tions each will qual­i­fy.

Uruguay clob­bers ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­women’ 8-1

The “Ca­lyp­so Stick­women” were brought back down to earth af­ter their pul­sat­ing 2-1 win against host Ja­maica af­ter be­ing clob­bered 8-1 by favourites Uruguay in Group B.

For the South Amer­i­cans, who crushed Brazil 7-0 in their open­er, Manuel Vi­lar led the way with a beaver trick, scor­ing two goals in­side the first 60 sec­onds, and the third minute, be­fore she added two more in the tenth, and 11th min­utes Chiara Cur­cio added a sec­ond-half dou­ble, both in the 13th, and Cami­la Pi­az­za, and Mysz­ka Sol, the oth­ers in the first and 17th min­utes re­spec­tive­ly.

For the T&T women, Chelsea Dey scored the con­so­la­tion item in the 12th minute which briefly made the score 5-1.

Host Ja­maica and Brazil drew 2-2 in the oth­er Group B match while to­day (Tues­day), the Glen ‘Fi­do’ Fran­cis-coached T&T women face Brazil at 4.40 pm while Uruguay meets Ja­maica from 7.20 pm.

In Pool A, the USA joined Paraguay at the top of the stand­ings with six points each from two match­es thanks to an 8-0 drub­bing of Guatemala while Cen­tral Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons Cos­ta Ri­ca joined the Guatemalans on three points af­ter ek­ing out a 1-0 win against win­less Pana­ma.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries in both men’s and women’s com­pe­ti­tions, the teams will con­test cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals with the win­ners of each pool meet­ing the fourth-placed team in the oth­er while the sec­ond and third-placed teams clash as well to de­ter­mine the semi­fi­nal­ists.

From the semi­fi­nals, the two win­ners will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­offs.

The women’s teams to qual­i­fy so far for the World Cup in­clude the African trio of Namib­ia, South Africa, and Zam­bia along with host Oman while Ocea­nia, Asia, and Eu­rope are yet to de­ter­mine their three qual­i­fiers each as well.

2023 Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cups Re­sults:

Mon­day

Men’s com­pe­ti­tion:

Pool B:

Paraguay 6 vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 0

T&T 10 vs Guatemala 1

Pool A:

USA 3 vs Puer­to Ri­co 1

Ja­maica 3 vs Pana­ma 1

Women’s com­pe­ti­tion

Pool A:

Cos­ta Ri­ca 1 vs Pana­ma 0

USA 8 vs Guatemala 0

USA 5 vs Paraguay 0

Pool B:

Uruguay 8 vs T&T 1

Ja­maica 2 vs Brazil 2

Sun­day (June 4)

Men:

Pool B:

Paraguay 2 vs Guatemala 1

T&T 5 vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 1

Pool A:

Puer­to Ri­co 3 vs Pana­ma 2

USA 4 vs Ja­maica 2

Women

Pool A:

Paraguay 4 vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 0

Guatemala 2 vs Pana­ma 1

USA 8 vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 0

Paraguay 7 vs Pana­ma 0

Pool B:

Uruguay 7 vs Brazil 0

T&T 2 vs Ja­maica 1

Up­com­ing match­es:

Men:

Tues­day (June 6)

Pool B:

Guatemala vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 5.20 pm

Paraguay vs T&T, 6 pm

Pool A:

USA vs Pana­ma, 6.40 pm

Ja­maica vs Puer­to Ri­co, 8 pm

Women’s com­pe­ti­tion

Tues­day (June 6)

Pool A:

USA vs Pana­ma, 3.20 pm

Guatemala vs Paraguay, 4 pm

Pool B:

Brazil vs T&T, 4.40 pm

Uruguay vs Ja­maica, 7.20 pm