Up against pre-tournament favourites, Puerto Rico, the Guyana hockey ladies suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat in their opening fixture of the CAC qualifiers in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The Guyanese women started the match a bit tentative, giving away a penalty corner to Puerto Rico in the opening minute.
It took the youthful and relatively inexperienced Guyanese side more than a few minutes to settle, but they began stringing together effective passes and making raids on the Puerto Rican goal before the 15-minute first quarter came to an end.
The evenly matched sides traded punches for the rest of the first half with Puerto Rico making short runs through the midfield while the Guyanese strikers were able to use the superior speed to create opportunities of their own.
The match remained scoreless going into the final quarter of play, and just three minutes in, the Puerto Ricans earned what would be a crucial penalty corner.
The Guyanese suffered some degree of bad luck as the Puerto Ricans were awarded four penalty corners in a row and finally made good on the fourth. Puerto Rican captain, Josefina Freaney, would tarnish an otherwise flawless performance by Guyana’s goalkeeper Alysa Xavier by beating her on her right side with a direct strike at goal.
The lone goal was all the match would produce and secured the full three points for Puerto Rico, leaving Guyana needing to come away with wins in their next two fixtures against Bermuda on Saturday and Jamaica on Sunday.
