WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

T&T's Ca­lyp­so Stick­men will con­test the 2024 FIH Hock­ey5s World Cup in Mus­cat, Oman.

This af­ter they ham­mered Ja­maica 9-2 in their semi­fi­nal con­test on Fri­day night at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus in Kingston Ja­maica, to se­cure one of two au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fy­ing spots that come from book­ing a place in­to the fi­nal, while a third qual­i­fy­ing team will join them from a play-off of the two los­ing semi­fi­nal­ists.

Teague Mar­cano spear­head­ed the win with a beaver-trick (five goals), com­ing in the sec­ond, 8th, 10th, 11th and 12th min­utes of play, while Akim Tou­s­saint got a brace in the sixth and the 19th, with Shawn Phillip (sixth minute) and Mick­ell Pierre (13th minute).

The win didn't come with­out a fight from the coun­try's re­gion­al ri­val who bat­tled to get two goals in the ninth and 15th minute from the stick of Nick­oy Stephen­son.

It's the third time that a T&T men's team has qual­i­fied for a World Cup. T&T will now face the Unit­ed States in the ti­tle match on Sun­day at 7.15 pm.

Ear­li­er in the day, T&T bask­ing with an un­blem­ished record in the tour­na­ment so far pro­duced a dom­i­nant per­for­mance in their quar­ter­fi­nal en­counter against Pana­ma at the same venue with hat-tricks com­ing from Mar­cano and Tou­s­saint in a com­pre­hen­sive 10-1 rout.

The Pool B win­ners seem al­most cer­tain of a place in the FIH Hock­ey5s World Cup with the vic­to­ry, which con­firmed their su­pe­ri­or­i­ty in the tour­na­ment.

Eng­land-based Mar­cano, who re­cent­ly helped his team South­gate Hock­ey Club to pro­mo­tion to the Out­door Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, as well as one of two pro­mo­tion­al spots in the six-club Eng­land Hock­ey League Adult Su­per 6s In­door Cham­pi­onships Men’s Na­tion­al Di­vi­sion Two, hand­ed T&T the lead af­ter just the first minute of play. He lat­er com­plet­ed his hat-trick with goals in the 10th and 19th min­utes.

Tou­s­saint, who was giv­en the role of cap­tain of the team, led by ex­am­ple, with his hat trick com­ing in the sixth, sev­enth, and 19th min­utes.

With an al­most free reign for at­tack­ers, the men in red, white, and black raced to a 4-0 half-time lead and made the win a mat­ter of for­mal­i­ty, with Pierre scor­ing a brace in the 12th and 17th and the pair of Phillip and Jor­dan Vieira get­ting the oth­er two goals in the fourth and sev­enth min­utes.

The lone Pana­ma item came from Jas­son Mi­ran­da in the fourth.

Mean­while, the T&T women will to­day, al­so go af­ter a World Cup spot when they take on Paraguay, who lost to their South Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts Uruguay 5-1 in their semi­fi­nal con­test on Thurs­day night.

The win­ner of this play-off at 6.30 pm (T&T time) will join the two women's fi­nal­ists in the World Cup in Jan­u­ary.