Darren Cowie, coach of the T&T men’s Hockey5s team and team captain Akim Toussaint have both praised the effort of the team in winning silver at the Hockey 5s Pan American Cup which ended at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus Turf, Kingston, Jamaica on Sunday night.
The ‘Calypso Stickmen’ twice squandered the lead in a 2-2 draw in the 20-minute final against the USA before a 3-2 sudden-death penalty shoot-out loss.
Despite the loss, its only defeat in six matches, T&T along with gold medal winners USA qualified for the FIH Hockey5s World Cup in Oman, next January, along with host Jamaica who defeated Paraguay 5-2 in the all-important bronze medal match joining Switzerland, Holland, Poland, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and host Oman as teams already assured of competing in the 16-nation event while the remaining six qualifiers will come from Oceania and Asia where three nations each will qualify.
Leading the way for T&T was England-based Teague Marcano, who tallied a tournament-high 17 goals while Toussaint, and Mickell Pierre both finished with ten goals as the joint second-highest scorers for the T&T men who netted a tournament team-high 48 goals while Marcano also copped the ‘Most Valuable Player’ accolade.
Speaking before the team departed from Kingston for home yesterday, Cowie, who represented T&T at an Indoor World Cup in the past and has now qualified another team as coach said his team came out of the tournament in a pretty good state.
He said, “We were hoping for more of course, for the gold medal, but I felt like the guys still did perform to the best of their abilities and this is something that assistant coach Dwain Quan Chan and I were really trying to hit home with the players to try and make sure that they focus on the performance first, and the results would come after.
“And boy we had some really good performances from straight from the top from our captain Akim Toussaint and Teague Marcano getting ‘Most Goals’ and the ‘Most Valuable Player’ awards.”
In highlighting the overall solid display on his entire team Cowie noted, “I mean fair enough to all the players as they even mentioned that we could have had at least three of four other players who were deserving of the ‘MVP’ award based on just those performances.
“So, I’m really proud of the guys and the kind of efforts that they put out.”
With a busy schedule ahead for the players, Cowie said his players will now be refocusing on the outdoor 11-a-side format with the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games next on the agenda.
He said, “We now go back home to reconnect with the rest of the training squad for the 11’s version of the game as we prep for the CAC Games which will be another challenge for us.
“We really need to also dominate and not just medal in that competition, and this sets a nice kind of platform for us to build on,” ended Cowie.
The 34-year-old Toussaint, added, “We did pretty well in this tournament where we came out with silver.
Reflecting on the final, Toussaint admitted his team could have been a bit better.
He said, “We made a couple of crucial mistakes in the final, but we are very proud of what we did as it was a very good performance all-round in the tournament, and its only one game we lost which was on penalties in the final, and we look forward to our chances in Oman where we are going there to compete and do our best.
“Now it’s back to home where we will meet up with the other guys to go the CAC Games in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), and we actually train on Tuesday, so its straight back to the drawing board and we will be going out there to compete to the best of our abilities.”
With an eye on the World Cup in Oman, Toussaint said, “We want to improve on our fitness to a level where we really want to go out there and compete.”
