T&T Un­der-21 women and U-21 men hock­ey team coach­es, Kristin Thomp­son and Glen "Fi­do" Fran­cis both said they were op­ti­mistic about their teams' chances of a top-two fin­ish at the in­au­gur­al Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Chal­lenge at the Hock­ey Cen­tre in Wildey, Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos from March 8-16.

The ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Stick­women" will come up against Bar­ba­dos, Guatemala, Guyana, Mex­i­co, and Puer­to Ri­co in their round-robin se­ries while the the ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" face Bar­ba­dos, Brazil, Guatemala, Guyana, T&T and Venezuela in their round-robin pool.

At the end of which, the top two teams will con­test the gold medal match along with se­cur­ing the two spots avail­able to the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Paraguay this Au­gust while third and fourth-placed round-robin fin­ish­ers will com­pete for the bronze.

A for­mer St Fran­cois Girls Col­lege and Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty field hock­ey stand-out, Thomp­son, said the ju­nior women's team is very ea­ger and ex­cit­ed to com­pete and rep­re­sent T&T for the first time.

Thomp­son, who will al­so be mak­ing her na­tion­al coach­ing de­but at the tour­na­ment, added: "For most of them, this is their first time play­ing 11-a-side hock­ey, so our main fo­cus was get­ting them pre­pared to com­pete at the high­er lev­el while im­prov­ing their tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal skills.

"We will be fac­ing tough com­pe­ti­tion against Mex­i­co, Guyana and host coun­try Bar­ba­dos and al­though we are young, we are hop­ing to play for the medal spots and gain a qual­i­fy­ing spot for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games."

Look­ing ahead to the tour­na­ment, Fran­cis, speak­ing fol­low­ing his team's fi­nal prac­tice ses­sion at the St James Po­lice Bar­racks Hock­ey Fa­cil­i­ty in Port-of-Spain, said his team will be go­ing all out to win the tour­na­ment de­spite their chal­lenges in their prepa­ra­tions.

Fran­cis said, "We have a rel­a­tive­ly in­ex­pe­ri­enced group who will be head­ing out to their first ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment apart from three guys with se­nior team ex­pe­ri­ence in Nicholas White­man, goal­keep­er/cap­tain Leu­mas Nep­tune and Levi An­der­son while Aidan Elias (Cana­da) and Adam Wy­att (Eng­land) have had some ex­po­sure to a high­er lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion at this age-group over­seas.

"So, with the time we had, we did a lot of work on their fit­ness and tried to bring them up to speed as much as pos­si­bly tac­ti­cal­ly.

"We al­so have to thank the mem­bers of the se­nior team who made them­selves avail­able for prac­tice match­es against the ju­nior play­ers and in those match­es, they (U-21s) were pushed very hard and held their own."

Fran­cis, a for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er said he ex­pects the match­es to be very tough in Bar­ba­dos but is con­fi­dent his play­ers will rise to the chal­lenge.

"We have put in as much work as we could have done dur­ing the time we had to pre­pare, and while we would have liked to ar­rive in Bar­ba­dos ear­ly to get in at least one prac­tice match against one of the teams, we will have to make do with what has been al­lot­ted to us," said Fran­cis, who will be as­sist­ed by for­mer na­tion­al se­nior team cap­tain Akim Tou­s­saint.

The na­tion­al teams are sched­uled to de­part to­day for Bar­ba­dos.

T&T teams

T&T U-21 women: Jew­el Nurse (goal­keep­er), Chezelle Miller (goal­keep­er), Daniel­la Dou­glas, Shani­qua Paul, Nata­nia Rowe, Skye Mc Lean, Mikeshia De Sil­va (cap­tain), Robyn Dash (cap­tain), Megan Lo­cario, Re­nal­lias Con­stan­tine, Jedyah Kistow, Leah Abra­ham, In­eke Blake, Zuriel An­toine, Chelsea Sue, Analeigh Beat­rice.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Kristin Thomp­son (coach), Col­in Thomp­son (as­sis­tant coach), Avion Ash­ton (man­ag­er), Jude Mc Knight (med­ical doc­tor), Karielle De Bique(phys­io­ther­a­pist), Chu­ma Bar­clay (phys­i­cal train­er), Anya Gi­ann Sealy (video tech­ni­cian)

T&T U-21 men: Cameron Adam­son, Nicholas White­man, An­drew Mo­hammed, Nicholas Siu Butt, Wayne Ed­wards, Aidan Elias, Adam Wy­att, Justin Day, Jabari Alexan­der, Alexan­der Rowe, N'kosi Mar­celle, Rene Mo­hammed, Leu­mas Nep­tune (cap­tain/goal­keep­er), Levi An­der­son, Liam Mac, Ste­fan Shaw.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Glen Fran­cis (coach), Akim Tou­s­saint (as­sis­tant coach), Rigel Gomes (man­ag­er), Karielle De Bique(phys­io­ther­a­pist), Kwade Kelon (phys­i­cal train­er), Justin Be­har­ry Sealy (video tech­ni­cian)

Ju­nior Men's Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge sched­ule:

March 8:

8 am: Brazil vs Venezuela

2 pm: Guyana vs Guatemala

March 9:

10 am: Brazil vs Guatemala

2 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs T&T

March 10:

2 pm: Guyana vs T&T

4 pm: Venezuela vs Bar­ba­dos

March 11:

2 pm: Venezuela vs Guyana

March 12:

8 am: T&T vs Guatemala

2 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs Brazil

March 13:

12 noon: T&T vs Venezuela

2 pm: Guyana vs Brazil

4 pm: Guatemala vs Bar­ba­dos

March 15:

8 am: Brazil vs T&T

10 am: Guatemala vs Venezuela

2 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs Guyana

March 16:

8 am: 5th Pool 1 v 6th Pool 1 (5th Place)

12 noon: 3rd Pool 1 v 4th Pool 1 (3rd Place)

4 pm: 1st Pool 1 v 2nd Pool 1 (1st Place)

Ju­nior Women's Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge sched­ule:

Mar 8:

10 am: Guyana vs Guatemala

12 noon: T&T vs Mex­i­co

4 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs Puer­to Ri­co

March 9:

8 am: Guyana vs Mex­i­co

12 noon: Puer­to Ri­co vs T&T

4 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs Guatemala

March 11:

10 am: Puer­to Ri­co vs Guyana

12 noon: Mex­i­co vs Guatemala

4 pm: T&T vs Bar­ba­dos

March 12:

10 am: Guatemala vs T&T

12 noon: Mex­i­co vs Puer­to Ri­co

4 pm: Guyana vs Bar­ba­dos

March 14:

12 noon: T&T vs Guyana

2 pm: Guatemala vs Puer­to Ri­co

4 pm: Bar­ba­dos vs Mex­i­co

March 15:

12 noon: 5th Pool 1 vs 6th Pool 1 (5th Place)

March 16:

10 am: 3rd Pool 1 vs 4th Pool 1 (3rd Place)

2 pm: 1st Pool 1 vs 2nd Pool 1 (1st Place)