Alexan­der Rowe scored two sec­ond-half goals as T&T "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" came from be­hind to de­feat Venezuela 4-2 to se­cure a spot in the fi­nal of the Ju­nior Pan Am Chal­lenge at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex Hock­ey Cen­tre in Wildey, Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, on Thurs­day.

Go­ing in­to the match, the Glen "Fi­do" Fran­cis-coached "Stick­men" sat sec­ond on the ta­ble with sev­en points from three match­es, two be­hind Brazil who they meet to­day in the fi­nal round-robin match be­fore both teams clash in Sun­day's fi­nal.

Venezuela, on the oth­er­hand was third with six points and need­ed to avoid de­feat to keep alive their hopes of a top two round-robin fin­ish to reach the fi­nal, with win­less Guatemala to come in the fi­nal round-robin match­day.

Both teams were even­ly matched for most of the first 15 min­utes quar­ter be­fore the South Amer­i­cans went ahead with 12 min­utes gone through Rafael Salazar which they took in­to the end of the quar­ter.

The sec­ond quar­ter fol­lowed the pat­tern of play just as the first with both teams giv­ing very lit­tle away, how­ev­er, this time it was the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" get­ting the lone goal in the quar­ter cour­tesy Adam Wy­att, to fol­low up on his hat-trick in the 5-0 win over Guatemala on Wednes­day, to take his tal­ly to five goals in four match­es.

In the third quar­ter, T&T man­aged to sneak ahead of Venezuela when Rowe scored his first of the match with 35 sec­onds left on the clock for a 2-1 lead and all to play for in the fi­nal 15-minute quar­ter.

With­in a minute of the start of the fi­nal pe­ri­od Rowe banged in his sec­ond of the match to give his team­mates some much-need­ed breath­ing room on the score­board at 3-1, but less than two min­utes lat­er, Salazar al­so scored his sec­ond of the match to re­duce the deficit to 2-3.

With eight min­utes re­main­ing on the clock, Wayne Ed­wards re­stored T&T's two-goal cush­ion at 4-2 af­ter which his team­mates con­trolled the flow of the match to take home the three points and a guar­an­teed spot in the fi­nal against Brazil with both teams seal­ing their spots at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay, from Au­gust 10-19.

In the oth­er men’s match­es, Brazil bat­tled past Guyana 2-1 while Bar­ba­dos whipped Guatemala 3-1 to move in­to the fourth spot with three points, one more than Guyana while Guatemala stayed bot­tom of the stand­ings with­out a point.

To­day is a rest day for the men be­fore ac­tion re­sumes on Sat­ur­day with Brazil and T&T clash­ing in the day's open­er from 8 am, fol­lowed by Guatemala and Venezuela from 10 am, and Bar­ba­dos and Guyana at 2 pm ahead of Sun­day;s fi­nal day of play­off match­es.

Ca­lyp­so Stick­women look to ce­ment bronze play­off spot

T&T U-21 women’s hock­ey team go in­to their fi­nal round-robin pool match against Guyana at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge need­ing a win to be cer­tain of a spot in Sun­day's bronze medal match.

As it stands, the Kristin Thomp­son-coached Ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Stick­women"' who are out of con­tention to con­test the gold medal match as well as qual­i­fy for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay in Au­gust, sits fourth on the six-team ta­ble with four points from as many match­es in the fourth spot while Guyana is two points above in third.

Mex­i­co leads the ta­ble with a max­i­mum 12 points to book their gold medal match spot ahead of their fi­nal match against Bar­ba­dos from 4 pm, while Puer­to Ri­co, who will meet the South Amer­i­cans in Sun­day's fi­nal with both teams al­ready through to Paraguay, comes up against Guatemala from 2 pm.

A de­feat for T&T in their fi­nal match will leave the door open for Bar­ba­dos to move in­to the fourth spot, but the Ba­jans will need a draw for the least against the ta­ble lead­ers, to do so.

At the end of the com­pe­ti­tion in both the men’s and women’s cat­e­gories, the top two teams will con­test the gold medal match along with se­cur­ing the two spots avail­able to the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay this Au­gust, while third and fourth-placed round-robin fin­ish­ers will com­pete for the bronze.

Stand­ings

Men’s Div

Brazil 4 4 0 0 21 3 12

T&T 4 3 1 0 12 4 10

Venezuela 4 2 0 2 4 5 6

Bar­ba­dos 4 1 1 2 6 12 4

Guyana 4 1 0 3 4 5 3

Guatemala 4 0 0 4 1 19 0

Women’s Div

Teams P W D L F A Pts

Mex­i­co 4 4 0 0 34 0 12

Puer­to Ri­co 4 3 0 1 22 3 9

Guyana 4 2 0 2 5 9 6

T&T 4 1 1 2 2 22 4

Bar­ba­dos 4 1 0 3 7 9 3

Guatemala 4 0 1 3 0 27 1

Match­es

Men Di­vi­sion:

Sat­ur­day (March 15)

Brazil vs T&T, 8 am

Guatemala vs Venezuela, 10 am

Bar­ba­dos vs Guyana, 2 pm

Sun­day (March 16)

5th Pool 1 vs 6th Pool 1 (5th Place), 8 am

3rd Pool 1 vs 4th Pool 1 (3rd Place), 12 noon

1st Pool 1 vs 2nd Pool 1 (1st Place), 4 pm

Women Di­vi­sion

Fri­day (March 14)

T&T vs Guyana, 12 noon

Guatemala vs Puer­to Ri­co, 2 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs Mex­i­co, 4 pm

Sat­ur­day (March 15)

5th Pool 1 vs 6th Pool 1 (5th Place), 12 noon

Sun­day (March 16)

3rd Pool 1 vs 4th Pool 1 (3rd Place), 10 am

1st Pool 1 vs 2nd Pool 1 (1st Place), 2 pm