Guyana women’s hockey team completes tour to CanadaPreparation for IPAC continues immediately

Mar 27, 2019 Sports

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A Guyanese national indoor women’s selection travelled to Canada on March 20th to compete in a Field Hockey Canada Invitational Indoor Hockey Tri-Nation series from March 22nd to 24th. Also invited to compete against a Canadian national selection and a Canadian President’s eleven was the national team of Kazakhstan. With a ranking of 13th in the world, Kazakhstan were the highest ranked team of the series followed by Canada; ranked 17th and Guyana; ranked 31st.

Guyana’s efforts to participate in this event were really motivated by the need to expose new young players to a high level of competition ahead of the next Indoor Pan American Cup (IPAC) which is scheduled for Pottsville, Pennsylvania in March 2020.
The last time the Guyana women participated in international indoor hockey was back in 2017 when the IPAC was held here in Georgetown at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH). This selection for Canada saw as many as six new faces on the 14 member squad with five of them under 16-years-old. The Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) deliberately searched for young talent emerging from the Smalta/Icool Junior tournaments over the past couple of years in an effort to begin preparation for the next four year cycle in which the aim is for Guyana to attempt to qualify, for the first time ever, for an indoor World Cup.
Guyana opened its series in Canada on the morning of March 22nd with a match against the Asian indoor champions Kazakhstan. From the outset it could be seen that the Kazaks were far more experienced than the young Guyanese who seemed to also struggle a bit with the fast smooth wooden surface on the University of Toronto Athletic Centre. While Kazakhstan put the Guyanese under tremendous pressure in the first half, superb goalkeeping by Alysa Xavier and solid defence work from Guyana’s most experienced players, Marisha Fernandes and Trisha Woodroffe, kept the scores at 0-0.

The second half would see the tide swing in Guyana’s favour as Woodroffe hammered home two powerful direct penalty corner flicks in the 27th and 29th minutes to give Guyana a 2-0 lead. Kazakhstan gave it their all in the final ten minutes and came close to scoring on a few occasions but Xavier kept them at bay, aside from one penalty corner goal in the final minute. The 2-1 victory for Guyana over the highly ranked Kazak’s was an unexpected positive start for the Guyanese.
The second match for Guyana that very same afternoon proved much tougher as the well-rehearsed and experienced Canadians piled on pressure on the Guyanese, who defended bravely to keep the score to 0-0 at the half before eventually losing 6-0.
The second day saw Guyana facing Canada White who had defeated Kazakhstan by 2-1 on the previous day. Both teams fought hard to gain the upper hand in this match but it finished 0-0 which was enough to see the teams meet

again in the semi-final which Guyana lost 3-2 after sudden death penalties.
The semi-final loss meant Guyana had to face the Kazaks once more for the bronze medal match which turned out to be anti-climactic for the Guyanese as they lost 4-1.
Team Guyana Coach Philip Fernandes indicated that, despite the disappointing placement of his team in the end, a great many of the objectives were achieved during the series. Fernandes shared that the team, being fully aware of their unfavourable ranking and inexperience, had set a target to win or draw at least one match in the series. As it turns out they won a match and drew twice during the series.
Fernandes noted that the Guyanese defended well throughout the series but needed to improve on their offensive skills and ability to turn chances into goals. All four of Guyana’s goals came via the penalty corner route which highlighted the fact that they were not able to score in the run of play. While it is difficult to single out players in a team sport, the coach was high in praise for goalkeeper Alysa Xavier who, in his opinion was the best goalkeeper in the series. Fernandes pointed out that aside from Gabriella Xavier and Nicole Eastman, both of whom carried the brunt of the attack, Sarah Klautky and Abosaide Cadogan had encouraging moments and showed that they had the foot speed to match the seniors.
Guyana must now try to find a facility on which to train for the IPAC in 2020. While the Guyana Hockey Board recently signed an MOU with the government for some land on Durban Park, that will take some time to develop and so in the meantime the GHB cannot afford to sit back and wait as the other nations have clearly begun to prepare. The tile floor accessed by the GHB in 2017 remains inaccessible as basketball prefers to use the wooden surface at the CASH and so the GHB will need to try to find a temporary space where they can lay down the floor and have their teams train to be ready for 2020.

 

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