HOCKEY: Supernova lads make winning start to UWI Indoor

Guyana’s indoor developmental hockey team, Supernova, continued their good showing in Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday evening when they defeated Notre Dame 4-0 to make a winning start to the University of the West Indies (UWI) Indoor Tournament.

The 12-man team, made up of 11 junior players and captained by senior national Jamarj Assanah, has been surprisingly competitive against some quality senior Trinidadian club sides.

On Thursday night it was 16-year-old lightening rod Warren Williams who opened the scoring when he received a pass at the centre of the D and spun quickly to his left to wrap the ball around Notre Dame’s advancing goalkeeper Gregory Garraway in the third minute.

Another 16-year-old, Samuel Woodroffe, made it 2-0 in the 12th minute with a clinical penalty corner conversion. In the second half, the relentless pressure by the Guyanese produced some spectacular saves from Garraway, until the 20th minute when Kareem McKenzie converted another penalty corner.

Omar Hopkinson put the icing on the cake with a penalty stroke conversion in the 24th minute to complete the 4-0 blowout.

In his post-match assessment of the team’s performance, national coach Robert Fernandes said: “I’m pleased with the result, the fact that we kept a clean sheet and that our penalty corner unit seems to be firing, however I’m not happy with certain aspects of tonight’s performance. We’re facing a different challenge in this tournament, because the boys have now been here for eight days and they are more comfortable with their surroundings and more familiar with the teams. If you’re not careful complacency starts to creep in and I saw a bit of that tonight. It’s all a new experience for most of them so I expect they will learn from this and take a different approach on Friday night against a strong UWI side.”