T&T se­nior hock­ey women suf­fered a 16-0 de­mo­li­tion at the hands of the USA in their Group B open­er of the Pan Amer­i­can Cup at the Prince of Wales Coun­try Club, La Reina, San­ti­a­go, Chile on Wednes­day.

Go­ing in­to the con­test, the 48th world-ranked An­tho­ny Mar­cano-coached “Ca­lyp­so Stick­women” were con­sid­ered heavy un­der­dogs and their cause was not help with more than half of the team ar­riv­ing in South Amer­i­ca around mid­night on Tues­day.

With­in a minute of the first whis­tle, the 15th world-ranked Amer­i­cans sig­nalled their in­tent Elizath Yea­ger open­ing the scor­ing with a close-range fin­ish past goal­keep­er Ar­resia Sandy.

Two min­utes lat­er Erin Mat­son dou­bled the lead for the USA be­fore Ash­ley Ses­sa (fourth) and Hope So­lo (eighth), added their names to the score­sheet for a 4-0 lead at the end of the first 15-min­utes pe­ri­od.

The sec­ond quar­tet was more of the same as USA pegged the T&T women in­to their half of the field with Mat­son (24th), Ses­sa (24th) and a brace from Rose in the 26th and 30th min­utes push­ing the mar­gin to 8-0 at the half-time in­ter­val.

The third pe­ri­od proved to be T&T's best de­fen­sive ef­fort as they con­ced­ed on­ly three goals through Mat­son (33rd), Sofia Southam (38th) and Yea­ger (40th).

How­ev­er, the ex­tra ef­fort from the T&T play­ers proved cost­ly as key de­fend­er Aman­da George picked up a left calf in­jury with six min­utes left in the pe­ri­od.

The ab­sence of the ex­pe­ri­enced George was felt in the fi­nal quar­ter as the Amer­i­cans upped the tem­po and added five more goals, with Yea­ger (46th penal­ty stroke), Alia Mar­shall (48th), Danielle Gre­ga (55th), Rose with her fourth in the 57th, and Lau­ren two min­utes from full-time all scor­ing to com­plete the lop­sided re­sult.

The win lift­ed the USA to the top of the four-team pool ahead of 13th ranked Cana­da on goal-dif­fer­ence af­ter the lat­ter al­so record­ed an em­phat­ic 14-0 tri­umph over Pe­ru, ranked 34th.

To­mor­row when the women's com­pe­ti­tion re­sume, T&T will come up against Pe­ru in a cru­cial clash from 1p m that could well de­ter­mine the third spot in the pool ahead of the play­offs while Cana­da faces the USA in a vir­tu­al pool de­cider as well from 3.15 pm.

The lo­cal women then com­plete pool play against Cana­da on Sun­day from 1 pm as well while the USA plays Pe­ru.

Last night in Pool A, five-time win­ners Ar­genti­na came up against Uruguay in their open­er with host Chile the oth­er team in their group.

At the end of the round-robin pool play on Sun­day, 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.

Both fi­nal­ists and the third-place fin­ish­ers in the Pan Amer­i­can com­pe­ti­tion which ends on Jan­u­ary 29 will earn places at the16-team FIH World Cup.

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.

Wednes­day's Re­sults

Pool B:

Cana­da 14 (Bri­enne Stairs 15th, 28th, 35th, 43rd, 60th, Elise Wong 18th, 42nd, Al­i­son Lee 25th, Made­line Sec­co 26th, Sarah Mc Manus 47th, Aman­da Wood­croft 48th, Jor­dyn Faiczak 49th, 55th, Madi­son Thomp­son 52nd) vs Pe­ru 0

USA (Hope Rose 8th, 26th, 30th, 57th, Eliz­a­beth Yea­ger 1st, 40th, 46th pen, Erin Mat­son 3rd, 24th, 33rd, Ash­ley Ses­sa 4th, 24th, Sofi­ah Southam 36th, Alia Mar­shall 54th, Danielle Gre­ga 55th, Lau­ren Moy­er 59th) vs T&T 0

Fri­day's match­es

Pe­ru vs T&T, 1 pm

USA vs Cana­da, 3.15 pm

Chile vs Ar­genti­na, 5.30 pm