Nigel Si­mon

The lo­cal women's hock­ey team de­part­ed yes­ter­day for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they will al­so com­pete in sec­ond round qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the FIH World Hock­ey League, part of the In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion's (FIH) quest to make the qual­i­fi­ca­tion process for the World Cup and the Olympics as in­clu­sive as pos­si­ble.

The League has four rounds run­ning from Au­gust 2012 to Feb­ru­ary 2014. This com­pe­ti­tion is T&T's sec­ond step to­ward qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2014 World Cup.

The Alan­na Lewis-skip­pered T&T women's team, ranked 27th in the world, ad­vanced to the sec­ond round of qual­i­fi­ca­tion af­ter end­ing third in the six-team first round qual­i­fi­ca­tion se­ries at the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre, Tacarigua, last No­vem­ber be­hind fel­low qual­i­fiers Cana­da and Uruguay.

In Rio, T&T will once again face Uruguay along with USA, Scot­land, Chile and Brazil from Mon­day un­til Sun­day March 10 at the De­odoro Field Hock­ey Cen­tre.

In­clud­ed in the T&T squad, coached by Ian Har­ris, are sev­er­al un­der-21 play­ers who are set to de­but af­ter re­ceiv­ing their first call-up.

They in­clude 15-year-old Bri­an­na Govia, 18-year-olds Elise Olton and Kay­la Braith­waite, Arielle Cowie, 20-year-old Brit­tney Hingh and the ex­pe­ri­enced Oire Trot­man make their re­turn.

Among the no­table ab­sen­tees are Kristin Thomp­son, 2011 T&T Hock­ey Board "Play­er of the Year," and for­mer vice cap­tain Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

Pri­or to their de­par­ture, man­ag­er of the women's team Jameel Be­har­ry said the team may rue the un­avail­abil­i­ty of sev­er­al key play­ers, but the in­tro­duc­tion of the younger play­ers is an in­di­ca­tion of the plans by man­age­ment to in­te­grate its young, en­er­getic play­ers with the more sea­soned cam­paign­ers.

The Amer­i­can women en­ter as the high­est-ranked team at tenth fol­lowed by Chile (18th), Scot­land (19th), T&T, Uruguay (50th) and host na­tion Brazil at 51.

The two high­est fin­ish­ers in this tour­na­ment are guar­an­teed a place in Round 3.

Team

Alan­na Lewis (cap­tain), Stephanie White­man, Kay­la Brath­waite, Bri­an­na Govia, Elise Olton, Brit­tney Hingh, Oire Trot­man, Arielle Cowie, Tere­sa Leza­ma, Zene Hen­ry, Avion Ash­ton, Petal Der­ry (GK), Blair Wynne, Sekayi Liburd, Kwylan Jag­gas­sar, Arielle Williams, Je­nielle Car­ring­ton (GK), Krizia Layne.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Ian Har­ris (coach), Jameel Be­har­ry (man­ag­er), Abi­gail Agard (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (head of del­e­ga­tion/chap­er­one), Dr Zynul Khan (Doc­tor), Karielle de Bique (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Ka­masha Robin­son (psy­chol­o­gist), Nicholas Baldeosingh (video­g­ra­ph­er) and Chad Pe­dro (an­a­lyst/IT sup­port).

T&T fix­tures

Mon­day vs Scot­land

Tues­day vs Chile

Thurs­day vs Uruguay

Sat­ur­day vs Brazil

Sun­day vs USA