NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Team cap­tain Akim Tou­s­saint net­ted a beaver trick while Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano, and Mick­ell Pierre added a hat trick each as T&T’s Ca­lyp­so Stick­men blast­ed Paraguay 12-1 in their Men’s Group B de­cider at the in­au­gur­al Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cups Tour­na­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus Turf, Kingston, Ja­maica, on Tues­day.

Both teams en­tered their fi­nal round-robin clash in the four-team pool with a max­i­mum of six points each, how­ev­er, with­in the first four min­utes, T&T was in full con­trol of the con­test thanks to Mar­cano’s goals in­side the first minute, third and fourth for a 3-0 cush­ion to car­ry his per­son­al tal­ly to a tour­na­ment-high eight goals while Pierre made it 4-0 on the stroke of half-time in the 20-min­utes match.

The sec­ond half was more of the same from the ram­pant Dar­ren Cowie-coached T&T men with Tou­s­saint scor­ing in the 11th and 12th min­utes fol­lowed by a brace from Pierre in the 13th and 14th to com­plete his hat trick while push­ing the lead to 8-0.

Ju­nior Ro­driguez then man­aged to pull a goal back for Paraguay beat­ing goal­keep­er An­drey Rocke from some dis­tance, but it on­ly seemed to spark T&T in­to life once again with Jor­dan Reynos (16th) and Nicholas Grant (17th) get­ting their names on the score­sheet be­fore Tou­s­saint com­plet­ed his beaver trick with two fur­ther items, both in the 18th minute to com­plete the 12-1 drub­bing and a max­i­mum of nine points at the top of the ta­ble, and a quar­ter­fi­nal date with Pool A cel­lar-placed team Pana­ma on Fri­day from 4.15 pm.

In the oth­er last-eight match-ups, Pool A win­ners USA meets Cos­ta Ri­ca, Paraguay clash with Puer­to Ri­co, and Guatemala en­ter­tains host Ja­maica as the teams con­tin­ue their quest to fin­ish among the top three to earn places at the FIH Hock­ey5s (five-a-side) Men’s 16-team World Cup in Mus­cat, Oman next Jan­u­ary.

At the con­clu­sion of the men’s quar­ter­fi­nals, the win­ners of the semi­fi­nals will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­offs.

The men’s teams to qual­i­fy so far for the World Cup are Bel­gium, Hol­land, and Poland (Eu­rope), and Egypt, Kenya, and Nige­ria (Africa) along with host Oman, while Ocea­nia and Asia are yet to stage their qual­i­fiers from which three na­tions each will qual­i­fy. On Wednes­day is a rest day.

Olton earns draw for Ca­lyp­so Stick­women

Saman­tha Olton scored a sec­ond-half brace as the T&T “Ca­lyp­so Stick­women” bat­tled back from a 0-2 deficit to earn a 2-2 draw with Brazil in their fi­nal Pool B round-robin match.

With the point earned, the Glen ‘Fi­do’ Fran­cis-coached T&T women end­ed their four-team round-robin se­ries with four points, and sec­ond on the ta­ble, ahead of the quar­ter­fi­nals, five adrift of pool win­ners Uruguay who end­ed with a max­i­mum of nine points while Brazil was third two points, and host Ja­maica, in the fourth spot with one point.

Com­ing off an 8-1 loss to Uruguay, the T&T women were ea­ger to get back to win­ning ways, but in the eighth minute, they found them­selves trail­ing to a chal­lenge goal (penal­ty-stroke shoot-out play from Palo­ma Si­mon.

A minute in­to the sec­ond half, An­na De Almei­da dou­bled the score for the Brazil­ians as the South Amer­i­cans looked on course to se­cure their first win of the com­pe­ti­tion to leapfrog T&T in­to the sec­ond spot.

How­ev­er, it was not to be as for­mer Saint Fran­cis Uni­ver­si­ty play­er Olton first sliced the lead in half in the 16th minute, and two min­utes lat­er she got her sec­ond of the match to earn T&T a well-de­served share of the points.

With the Uruguayans ex­pect­ed to take full points against Ja­maica last night, T&T will next face Pool A third-placed fin­ish­ers Guatemala (2-2), who end­ed with six points from their four match­es, eight be­hind the un­beat­en USA (4-0) who fin­ished with a max­i­mum of 12 points while Paraguay was sec­ond in the five-team pool with a 3-1 record and nine points.

In the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nals on Thurs­day, the USA faces Ja­maica, Paraguay meets Brazil, and Cos­ta Ri­ca tack­les Uruguay for the semi­fi­nal places.

From the semi­fi­nals, the two win­ners will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­off.

The women’s teams to qual­i­fy so far for the World Cup in­clude the African trio of Namib­ia, South Africa and Zam­bia along with host Oman while Ocea­nia, Asia, and Eu­rope are yet to de­ter­mine their three qual­i­fiers each as well.

Tues­day's re­sults

Men

Pool B:

Guatemala 4 vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 0

T&T 12 vs Paraguay 1

Pool A:

USA 5 vs Pana­ma 0

Women’s com­pe­ti­tion

Pool A:

USA 8 vs Pana­ma 0

Paraguay 2 vs Guatemala 0

Pool B:

Brazil 2 vs T&T 2