T&T U-21 women’s hock­ey will play for the bronze medal against Guyana at the Ju­nior Pan Am Chal­lenge from 10 am on Sun­day (March 16) at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex Hock­ey Cen­tre in Wildey, Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos.

This, de­spite a 1-0 loss to the same op­po­nents in their fi­nal round-robin match in the six-team tour­na­ment at the same venue yes­ter­day to end with four points from five match­es.

For Guyana, who end­ed in the third spot with nine points, Re­bec­ca Fer­reira scored the lone goal of the con­test against the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­women" as ear­ly as the fourth minute, which in the end proved to be the match win­ner.

In the pre­vi­ous match­es at the tour­na­ment, the Kristin Thomp­son-coaced T&T suf­fered heavy de­feats against Mex­i­co (8-0) and Puer­to Ri­co (13-0) be­fore they edged host Bar­ba­dos 2-1 then drew goal­less with Guatemala.

In to­mor­row's gold medal match, un­beat­en Mex­i­co and Puer­to Ri­co will clash while to­day, Bar­ba­dos and Guatemala meet in the fifth-placed match.

Yes­ter­day in their fi­nal pool match­es, Puer­to Ri­co mauled Guatemala for a fourth win in five match­es to end with 12 points, three adrift of Mex­i­co who made it five wins from as many match­es af­ter spank­ing Bar­ba­dos.

By qual­i­fy­ing to the gold medal match, both Mex­i­co and Puer­to Ri­co se­cured the two avail­able spots from the tour­na­ment to the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay from Au­gust 10-19.

Fran­cis aims for psy­cho­log­i­cal edge against Brazil

With a spot at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay from Au­gust 10-19 al­ready, T&T ju­nior “Ca­lyp­so Stick­men” will be aim­ing to gain a psy­cho­log­i­cal edge when they come up against Brazil in their top-of-the-ta­ble clash in the Ju­nior Pan Am Chal­lenge at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex Hock­ey Cen­tre in Wildey, Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos from 8 am Sat­ur­day.

Go­ing in­to tio­day's fi­nal day of round-robin match­es in the six-team tour­na­ment, the Glen 'Fi­do' Fran­cis-coached “Stick­men” sit sec­ond on the ta­ble with 10 points from four match­es af­ter they drew their open­er with host Bar­ba­dos 1-1 be­fore beat­ing Guyana (2-1), Guatemala (5-0) and Venezuela (4-2) to seal a top two fin­ish in the group.

Brazil, mean­hwile have won their four match­es cour­tesy a 1-0 tri­umph over Venezuela, 9-0 against Guatemala, 2-1 over Guyana, and 9-2 against Bar­ba­dos for a max­i­mum of 12 points.

Speak­ing af­ter his team's light train­ing ses­sion dur­ing yes­ter­day's tour­na­ment rest day, Fran­cis while ad­mit­ting his team had acheived their main tar­get of qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games, fac­ing Brazil ahead of both teams meet­ing again in the fi­nal on Sun­day was still an im­por­tant fix­ture.

He said, "The game still has a lot in it for us as we would like to top the group stage and send a psy­cho­log­i­cal blow to the Brazil­ians."

"Again we know we are go­ing to face them in the fi­nal on Sun­day, but we would like to make sure that we beat them tech­ni­cal­ly, so that when we clash in the fi­nals we will have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of how they play, stat­ed Fran­cis, a for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er and se­nior men and women's coach.

"Al­so for our own de­vel­op­ment I will like to see us con­tin­u­ing our un­beat­en run in the com­pe­ti­tion as it will help with the young guys over­all con­fi­dence," end­ed Fran­cis

In Sat­ur­day's oth­er match­es, Venezuela, third with six points need on­ly a draw against Guatemala from 10 am to reach the bronze medal match while Bar­ba­dos (four points) and Guyana (three points) clash ina di­rect bat­tle for the oth­er bronze medal spot and fourth on the ta­ble from 2 pm ahead of Sun­day;s fi­nal day of play­off match­es.

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

Women Di­vi­sion:

Sat­ur­day (March 15)

Fifth play­off: 5th Pool (Bar­ba­dos) vs 6th Pool (Guatemala), 12 noon

Sun­day (March 16)

Bronze medal play­off: 3rd Pool (Guyana) vs 4th Pool 1 (T&T), 10 am

Gold medal play­off: 1st Pool (Mex­i­co) vs 2nd Pool (Puer­to Ri­co), 2 pm