T&T se­nior men's hock­ey5s team dubbed the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" will be con­fi­dent of end­ing their cam­paign at the in­au­gur­al 16-na­tion FIH Hock­ey 5s World Cup on a high when they meet Kenya in the sev­enth-place play­off at the Hock­ey Oman Venue in Al Ama­rat, Mus­cat, Oman, from 5.50 am on Wednes­day.

This af­ter both T&T and Kenya were out­gunned in their re­spec­tive main draw quar­ter­fi­nals and fifth to eighth semi­fi­nals at the same venue Tues­day.

First up for the T&T men, who topped their four-team round-robin Pool C group which in­clud­ed pow­er­hous­es Aus­tralia and New Zealand as well as Kenya, with sev­en points, was a clash with the Malaysians, who end­ed sec­ond in Pool D to host Oman on goal-dif­fer­ence as well af­ter both teams fin­ished with sev­en points each as well.

The Akim Tou­s­saint-cap­tained Ca­lyp­so Stick­men, who whipped Kenya 7-2 in pool play on Mon­day, got off to a pos­i­tive start with Tou­s­saint scor­ing the open­er in the sixth minute on­ly for Malaysia to get back on lev­el terms thanks to Akhimul­lah An­uar in the ninth minute.

The see-saw bat­tle swung back in T&T's favour a minute lat­er with Mick­ell Pierre get­ting on the score­sheet but once again Malaysia re­spond­ed with Shukran Luq­man Ad­mad scor­ing in the 12th, be­fore Tariq Mar­cano scored in the 14th to give the Caribbean men a 3-2 half-time ad­van­tage.

In a sur­pris­ing twist to the sec­ond half, Malaysia came out fir­ing and scored three unan­swered goals via Abid Su­fi­an Mat (17th), Ka­marulza­man Ka­marud­din (22nd), and Syarman Mat (25th) to take a 5-3 lead with five min­utes left in the match, be­fore Teague Mar­cano, T&T's lead­ing scor­er in the com­pe­ti­tion man­aged to break the shack­les of be­ing held score­less with his team's fourth item on the stroke of full-time, but it was too late to res­cue his team.

With the loss, T&T was then faced with the task of beat­ing the Egyp­tians, who went un­der to Poland 2-1, in their fifth-to-eighth semi­fi­nal for a spot in the fifth-place match.

But it was not to be as the African cham­pi­ons in­spired by a hat-trick from Hos­sameldin Ragab (5th, 6th, 20th) and some stel­lar saves from goal­keep­er Mo­hamed Hemid out­gunned T&T 8-5 in a free-flow­ing ac­tion-packed clash.

The Egyp­tians who raced in­to a 2-0 lead al­so got a brace from Mo­hamed Edris (15th, 22nd) while the trio of Ahmed El­ganai­ni (25th), Mostafa Ragab (28th), and Amr Sayed (30th) chipped in with valu­able con­tri­bu­tions as well.

For T&T, who qual­i­fied for the World Cup af­ter a sec­ond-placed fin­ish to the USA at the Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cup in Kingston, Ja­maica last June by a mar­gin of 3-2 on penal­ties af­ter a 2-2 draw in reg­u­la­tion time Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano scored two goals in the 11th and 27th min­utes to car­ry his tour­na­ment tal­ly to 14 goals, but al­so missed a penal­ty.

The trio of Tou­s­saint (6th), Tarell Singh (21st), and Tariq Mar­cano (28th), the old­er of the Mar­cano broth­ers, added one each for T&T who al­so had goal­keep­er An­drey Rocke for keep­ing the con­test close in the sec­ond half with a few point-blank saves.

Speak­ing af­ter the loss to Egypt, Dar­ren Cowie who guid­ed his team to a 5-5 draw with Aus­tralia in their tour­na­ment open­er and an 11-4 spank­ing of New Zealand in their fi­nal pool match said the de­feats were def­i­nite­ly dis­ap­point­ing for the guys know­ing that they were so close.

He added, "Af­ter the loss to Malaysia we on­ly had a cou­ple of hours to re­cov­er and re­strate­gise for Egypt and the guys gave good ef­fort but lost mo­men­tum and con­sis­ten­cy in the sec­ond half af­ter some cost­ly er­rors, but I'm still proud of the ef­fort over­all."

The Kenyans, mean­while went un­der to Oman 5-2 in their quar­ter­fi­nal be­fore suf­fer­ing a 9-4 loss to In­dia in their fifth to eighth place semi­fi­nal.

The Nether­lands de­feat­ed In­dia 7-4 in their quar­ter­fi­nal fol­lowed by a 5-3 de­feat of Oman in their semi­fi­nal and will meet Malaysia in the gold medal match to­day from 12.20 pm af­ter they edged Poland 4-3 in the oth­er semi­fi­nal. The fi­nal four losers will clash in the bronze medal con­test from 11.10 am.

Tues­day’s results

Quar­ter­fi­nals:

Malaysia 5 (Akhimul­lah An­uar 9th, Shukran Luq­man Ad­mad 12th, Abid Su­fi­an Mat 17th, Ka­marulza­man Ka­marud­din 22nd, Syarman Mat 25th) vs T&T 4 (Akim Tou­s­saint 6th, Mick­ell Pierre 10th, Tariq Mar­cano 14th, Teague Mar­cano 30th)

Nether­lands 7 vs In­dia 4

Oman 5 vs Kenya 2

Poland 2 vs Egypt 1

Semi­fi­nals

Fifth to Eighth:

Egypt 8 (Hos­sameldin Ragab 5th, 6th, 20th, Mo­hamed Edris 15th, 22nd, Ahmed El­ganai­ni 25th, Mostafa Ragab 28th, Amr Sayed 30th) vs T&T 5 (Teague Mar­cano 11th, 27th, Akim Tou­s­saint 6th, Tarell Singh 21st, Tariq Mar­cano 28th)

In­dia 9 vs Kenya 4

First to Fourth:

Nether­lands 5 vs Oman 3

Malaysia 4 vs Poland 3

Wednesday’s play­off match­es

Sev­enth: T&T vs Kenya, 5.50 am

Fifth: In­dia vs Egypt, 10 am

Third place: Oman vs Poland, 11.10 am

Fi­nal: Nether­lands vs Malaysia, 12.20 pm

Top scor­ers:

21 - Ashraf Ran­da (Pak­istan)

14 - Teague Mar­cano (T&T)

11 - Mo­hammed Ra­heel (In­dia), Han­nan Shahid (Pak­istan)

10 - Hos­sameldin Ragab (Egypt), Akhimul­lah An­uar (Malaysia)

9 - Pat Har­ris (USA), Den­nis Solomon (Nige­ria)

8 - Mahid­ner Singh (In­dia), Ahmed El­ganai­ni (Egypt), Pe­ter John (Nige­ria), Alexan­der Schop (Nether­lands), Gael Wyss-Cho­dat (Switzer­land), Khalid Al Shaaibi (Oman)