Long Is­land Uni­ver­si­ty duo, Kait­lyn Olton and Fe­li­cia “Chucky” King scored a sec­ond-half goal each as T&T Ca­lyp­so Stick­women dom­i­nat­ed Pe­ru 2-0 in their sec­ond Group B match of the Pan Amer­i­can Cup at the Prince of Wales Coun­try Club, La Reina, San­ti­a­go, Chile on Fri­day.

The vic­to­ry for the Avion Ash­ton-cap­tained T&T women, not on­ly kept them in the main draw of the qual­i­fiers for the FIH World Cup lat­er this year, but it al­so bright­ened the mood of the team camp as sources close to the team in­formed that some of the play­ers were the vic­tims of theft with per­son­al be­long­ings and cash be­ing tak­en from their rooms.

Ac­cord­ing to the source the mat­ter has been re­port­ed to team man­age­ment who in turn have re­port­ed the sit­u­a­tion to the ho­tel man­age­ment who are now deal­ing with the is­sue.

With both teams go­ing in­to the match on the back of heavy de­feats, T&T los­ing 16-0 to USA and the Pe­ru­vians 14-0 against Cana­da, the bat­tle was on be­tween the two less fan­cy na­tions to get a win ahead of their fi­nal pool match­es to se­cure the third spot, which will guar­an­tee a place in the play­offs to de­ter­mine the three qual­i­fiers to the 16-team FIH Women’s World Cup in Ter­ras­sa, Spain and Am­stelveen, the Nether­lands from Ju­ly 1-17.

From very ear­ly on, the “Ca­lyp­so Stick­women” who edged Pe­ru 1-0 last Sep­tem­ber be­fore a 2-0 loss in the Pan Am Chal­lenge fi­nal last year, the qual­i­fi­er to this tour­na­ment – took the game to the South Amer­i­cans.

How­ev­er, de­spite pil­ing up no few­er than sev­en penal­ty short-cor­ners in the first half, the T&T women were kept at bay with Pe­ru­vian goal­keep­er Mikaela Tan­nert, com­ing up trumps with the help of her de­fence.

The T&T play­ers were al­so at fault for not try­ing some dif­fer­ent with their set plays as well as they con­tin­ued to be frus­trat­ed with a lack of clin­i­cal fin­ish­ing or com­po­sure when need­ed.

The open­ing goal fi­nal­ly came in the 43rd minute through one of the three Olton sis­ters in the team, two min­utes be­fore the end of the third pe­ri­od.

And two min­utes from full-time with the short-hand­ed Pe­ru­vians who on­ly dressed 13 play­ers for the match push­ing for an equalis­er, King, one of four LIU play­ers in the An­tho­ny Mar­cano-coached T&T squad, ranked 48th in the world made cer­tain of all three points with the team’s sec­ond against the 34th ranked Pe­ru­vians.

For yes­ter­day’s en­counter coach Mar­cano’s 18-mem­ber squad fea­tured sev­en new faces as com­pared to when both na­tions met last year in Li­ma in­clu­sive of the LIU quar­tet of King, and the Olton sis­ters, Kait­lyn, Saman­tha and Saarah as well as USA-based Tamia Roach, and Aus­tralian-based Kim­ber­ly Young.

On the oth­er hand, the Pe­ru­vians on­ly trav­elled with 15 play­ers, one of whom was not part of the con­tin­gent for their last meet­ing with T&T and for Fri­day’s match two of the 15 were un­avail­able.

USA took a gi­ant step to­wards se­cur­ing the lone au­to­mat­ic semi­fi­nal spot as group win­ners af­ter a bat­tling come-from-be­hind 3-1 win over neigh­bours Cana­da.

For Cana­da, Bri­enne Stairs scored in the 48th minute from a penal­ty-cor­ner set play to take her tour­na­ment tal­ly to six goals in two match­es but with­in a minute Kar­lie Kisha replied for the Amer­i­cans from a penal­ty-cor­ner set play as well be­fore Ash­ley Ses­sa net­ted the go-ahead item in the 57th, her third of the tour­na­ment, fol­lowed by cap­tain Aman­da Ma­g­a­dan in the 59th.

Last night in the lone Group A match, third-ranked Ar­genti­na buoyed by its 6-0 de­feat of Uruguay faced Chile, ranked 18th.

On Sun­day’s fi­nal day of round-robin women’s match­es, T&T plays Cana­da from 1 pm while USA faces Pe­ru from 3.15 pm, and in Pool A, Chile meets Uruguay from 5.30 pm.

At the end of the round-robin pool play, the top team from each pool will ad­vance di­rect­ly to the main draw semi­fi­nals on Jan­u­ary 27 while the sec­ond and third-placed teams in each pool meet in cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals two days ear­li­er to de­ter­mine the two re­main­ing semi­fi­nal qual­i­fiers.

This is the fourth time the T&T women are ap­pear­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter mak­ing their de­but in 2004 in Bar­ba­dos when they end­ed eighth.

T&T then qual­i­fied in 2009 and placed fourth in Bermu­da, and four years lat­er they end­ed sev­enth in Ar­genti­na.

The 2022 Women's FIH Hock­ey World Cup will be the 15th edi­tion of the Women's FIH Hock­ey World Cup, and will be held in Ter­ras­sa, Spain and Am­stelveen, the Nether­lands from Ju­ly 1 to 17, 2022.

Re­sults:

Jan­u­ary 21:

T&T 2 (Kait­lyn Olton 43rd, Fe­li­cia King 54th) vs Pe­ru 0

USA 2 (Kar­lie Kisha 49th, Ash­ley Kessa 57th, Aman­da Ma­g­a­dan 59th) vs Cana­da 1 (Bri­enne Stairs 48th)

Cur­rent Pool B stand­ings:

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

USA*2*2*0*0*19*1*6

Cana­da*2*1*0*1*15*3*3

T&T*2*1*0*1*2*16*3

Pe­ru*2*0*0*2*0*16*0

Re­main­ing sched­ule:

Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 23:

Cana­da vs T&T, 2 pm

Pe­ru vs USA, 4.15 pm

Uruguay vs Chile, 5.30 pm

Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 25:

Cross-Over quar­ter­fi­nals

2nd Pool A vs 3rd Pool B, 3 pm

2nd Pool B vs 3rd Pool A, 5.30 pm

Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 27:

5th to 6th play­off, 12.30 pm

Semi­fi­nals: 3 pm & 5.30 pm

Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 30:

Third place and Fi­nal play­offs, 3 pm & 5.30 pm