Harding to lead Guyana U-21 hockey team at Junior Pan-Am Championships

The Guyana Under-21 women’s hockey team is scheduled to compete in the 2023 Junior Pan American Championships scheduled for 10 – 18 April in Bridgetown, Barbados.

This will be the first-ever junior women’s team to represent the country in any competition, the Guyana Hockey Board stated in a release on Friday.

Seven junior women’s teams will be competing in the female competition which is a qualifier for the 2023 Junior World Cup being held in Santiago, Chile in December.

Though there is no official ranking for junior teams, Guyana’s women’s team is ranked #72 in the world and in these championships, the Guyanese girls come up against #14 Chile, #15 Canada, and #41 Barbados.

The other pool in the competition will feature #2 ranked Argentina, #16 USA and #25 Uruguay.

Guyana’s squad features a few experienced players in Captain Makeda Harding, Sarah Klautky, Clayza Bobb, Kirsten Gomes, Abosaide Cadogan and Madison Fernandes but the rest of the squad are new to international competition and most will be seeing a hockey artificial grass field for the first time in their lives.

According to the GHB, “the players were robbed of a full calendar of competition for the last few years, as the covid pandemic interrupted the usual hockey calendar of local events.

Guyana is the lowest-ranked team in the competition, the only team making its international debut and the only team featuring players who have never played the game on an artificial surface.

Coach Robert Fernandes indicated that, while expectations are modest, the team has to start somewhere, and if competition comes as close as Barbados and our players don’t participate, they will never gain the experience needed to be competitive in the future.

Guyana will face Canada in its very first match on Tuesday 11^th April at 11:00h followed by hosts Barbados the following afternoon at 13:30h and completes its pool round matches against Chile on Friday, April 14^th at 12:00h.

The tournament will then go to crossovers with the other pool with the finals being played on Tuesday 18^th April at 15:30h.