Nigel Si­mon

T&T's ju­nior women's hock­ey team end­ed in eighth spot at the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior (Un­der-21) Hock­ey Cham­pi­onship in Jalis­co, Guadala­jara, Mex­i­co yes­ter­day af­ter los­ing 2-0 to Mex­i­co in their sev­enth to eighth spot play­off. For the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans, Jazel Salazar opened the scor­ing in the 27th minute from a field goal while Maria Cor­rea added the in­sur­ance item in the 61st minute. In the fifth to eighth place semi­fi­nal on Wednes­day, T&T went un­der to Uruguay, 5-1 on Wednes­day while Venezuela se­cured a 3-2 gold­en-goal win over Mex­i­co af­ter both teams bat­tled to a 2-2 draw at the end of reg­u­la­tion time on Tues­day. Ear­li­er on yes­ter­day, Paraguay blanked Ja­maica 3-0 for ninth spot while Venezuela and Uruguay faced off in the late match for fifth spot. To­day in the gold medal match, Cana­da faces Ar­genti­na while Chile and USA meet for third spot.

In the main semi­fi­nals on Wednes­day, Cana­da whipped Chile 3-1 and the Ar­gen­tines crushed USA 6-0. By reach­ing the fi­nal, Cana­da and Ar­genti­na have qual­i­fied for the FIH Sev­enth Women's Ju­nior World Cup and will be joined by the bronze medal­list. If a Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (PAHF) Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion is the host, that coun­try will qual­i­fy au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, to­geth­er with the two high­est placed teams. To­day, the na­tion­al ju­nior men's team will come up against Mex­i­co in the play­off for fifth and sixth spot from 4 pm. This, af­ter the T&T hock­ey­men missed out on a chance to com­pete for the bronze af­ter their 2-1 loss to Chile in their fi­nal sec­ond round Pool E match on Thurs­day.