An un­der­strength T&T ju­nior women’s hock­ey team proved no match for the USA and fell to an em­bar­rass­ing 15-0 loss in their open­ing Pool B match at the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Women’s Hock­ey Cham­pi­onship in San­ti­a­go, Chile on Mon­day.

Hav­ing on­ly ar­rived in Chile on Sat­ur­day evening for the In­dia World Cup qual­i­fiers due to their late de­par­ture from T&T on Thurs­day night, the T&T women’s team coached by Dwain Quan Chan was dealt a fur­ther blow when the key USA-based quar­tet, the Olton-sis­ters Saarah, Kait­lyn and Saman­tha, and Fe­li­cia King, who are all en­rolled at Long Is­land Uni­ver­si­ty (LIU) missed their orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled flight from North Amer­i­ca on Fri­day, and on­ly touched down in Chile on Sun­day.

This meant the T&T quar­tet were sub­ject­ed to late manda­to­ry PCR Test­ing and had to sit out the team’s first match as they await­ed their PCR Test re­sults.

With the four key play­ers hav­ing to stay in quar­an­tine, the T&T ju­nior women’s team faced an up­hill task and by the end of the first 15-min­utes quar­ter of their clash with the Amer­i­cans who de­feat­ed Chile 2-1 in their open­er on Sun­day, it was a case of try­ing to lim­it the dam­age for Quan Chan and his play­ers, trail­ing 6-0.

The T&T girls put up a bet­ter de­fen­sive show­ing and on­ly con­ced­ed once to trail 7-0 at the half-time in­ter­val be­fore the Amer­i­cans turned up the heat again in the third pe­ri­od with four goals, and then four more in the fi­nal quar­ter for the lop­sided vic­to­ry.

For the USA Char­lotte de Vries net­ted five goals in the tenth, 37th, 39th, 45th, and 56th while Hope Rose (7th, 29th, 44th) and Ashe­ly Ses­sa (13th, 15th, 54th ) added hat tricks.

The trio of Sofia Southam (fifth and 52nd), Madeleine Zim­mer (fourth), and Abi­gail Tamer (51st) al­so net­ted for the win­ners who end­ed round-robin play with max­i­mum six points and cer­tain of a semi­fi­nal spot as pool win­ners.

But de­spite the lop­sided de­feat, T&T still has a chance to qual­i­fy to the semi­fi­nals and keep alive its chance of qual­i­fy­ing to the World Cup in South Africa but must beat Chile in their fi­nal pool match from 12 noon on Tues­day to earn a top two pool fi­nal and a semi­fi­nal spot.

In Pool A, Ar­genti­na and Cana­da, both with one point from goal­less draws with host Uruguay face off from 8 am.

A win for ei­ther Ar­genti­na or Cana­da will see them join­ing Chile in the semi­fi­nals, while a draw will leave all three teams on two points and leav­ing the top two places to be de­ter­mined by a penal­ty shoot-out be­tween the three teams.

Re­sults:

Au­gust 21:

Cana­da 0 vs Uruguay 0

Aug 22:

USA 2 vs Chile 1

Aug 23:

Uruguay 0 vs Ar­genti­na 0

USA 15 ( Char­lotte de Vries 10th, 37th, 39th, 45th, 56th, Hope Rose 7th, 29th, 44th, Ashe­ly Ses­sa 13th, 15th, 54th, Madeleine Zim­mer 4th, Sofia Southam 5th, 52nd, Abi­gail Tamer 51st) vs T&T 0

Re­main­ing match­es:

Au­gu 24:

Ar­genti­na vs Cana­da, 8 am

T&T vs Chile, 12 noon

Aug 26:

Fifth – Sixth Play­off: Third Pool A vs Third Pool B, 12 noon

Semi­fi­nal:

First Pool A vs 2nd Pool B, 2 pm

First Pool B vs 2nd Pool A, 4 pm

Aug 28:

Third Play­off: Los­er of semi­fi­nals, 10 am

Fi­nal: Win­ners of semi­fi­nals, 12 noon