Nigel Si­mon

Stacey Siu Butt will look to add to this coun­try's re­cent women's hock­ey suc­cess when she leads the in­door team to the fifth In­door Pan Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship in Bar­quisime­to, Venezuela. The 12-mem­ber team coached by David Fran­cois will hold its last two train­ing ses­sions at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, from 6 am to 8 am and 7 pm to 10 pm to­day be­fore to­mor­row's de­par­ture at 4 am for the one-week tour­na­ment which in­volves eight coun­tries. Siu Butt is fresh from help­ing the out­door team se­cure the gold medal at the 21st Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Puer­to Ri­co with a 4-0 win over Mex­i­co on Sat­ur­day.

How­ev­er, in Venezuela, T&T, win­ners in 2002, and third, five years ago in Cana­da will com­pete in Pool A with Pe­ru, Uruguay and the Cana­di­ans. Pool B com­pris­es, reign­ing cham­pi­ons, Ar­genti­na, Chile, USA and host, Venezuela. The "Ca­lyp­so Stick­women" squad in­cludes four oth­er play­ers who were on the gold medal squad in Puer­to Ri­co last week, in Krizia Layne, Alan­na Lewis, Sarayahu Plaza and Blair Wynn. The quar­tet of To­nia-Marie James, Yese­nia Luces, Cristi­na Abreu and Ke­cia Jones al­so make a re­turn to na­tion­al team du­ty while Jade Piper, Aman­da George and Gayle-Ann Nieves earn their first call-up.

T&T women's in­door hock­ey team:

Stacey Siu Butt (cap­tain), Sarayahu Plaza (GK), Krizia Layne, Alan­na Lewis, Jade Piper, To­nia-Marie James, Yese­nia Luces, Aman­da George, Gayle-Ann Nieves, Ke­cia Jones, Cristi­na Abreu, Blair Wynne.

Tech­ni­cal staff:

David Fran­cois (coach), Christa­bel­la George-Ford (man­ag­er), Hay­den Fran­cois (video­g­ra­ph­er).

Women's tour­na­ment group­ings:

Pool A: Cana­da, Pe­ru, T&T, Uruguay

Pool B: Ar­genti­na, Chile, USA, Venezuela

T&T sched­ule:

Au­gust 9: T&T vs Uruguay, 1.20 pm

Au­gust 11: T&T vs Cana­da, 2.20 pm

Au­gust 13: T&T vs Pe­ru, 12.15 pm.

Au­gust 14: Play­offs:

Au­gust 15: Fi­nal and third place