The Guyana Hockey Board’s (GHB) National U19 Development Team was beaten by the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Forces (TTDF) team in their semi-final encounter of the 6th Ventures Invitational Indoor Hockey Tournament.
Sunday’s encounter saw the Guyanese going down 2-3 at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Sports & Physical Education Centre (SPEC) indoor facility in what coach Robert Fernandes described as his side’s best performance of the tournament.
The locals, who had two goals disallowed, led the game 2-1 for the majority of the duel after strikes from Shomere Garnett and the consistent Warren Williams.
The Defence Force side, however, found two 30 minute strikes from Shane Leggerton and Nicholas Wren to support Marcus James 14th minute goal to clinch a come-from-behind win over the Guyanese who also went down to Paragon in the third-place contest 3-5.
Garnett, Meshach Sargent and Kareem McKenzie scored for the Guyanese Development Team while Trinidad and Tobago’s National player, Akim Toussaint netted four goals for Paragon.
Kelon Skerrit scored the other goal for the winners.
“Although it was disappointing to lose in the fashion that we did in the semi-final, it’s important to keep things in perspective [that] 11 of these players are 19 or under playing against Trinidad’s best senior club sides.
“The TTDF team is loaded with current and former national players and for these boys to be that competitive against such a strong team is way beyond our pre-tour expectations. I’m really proud of their performance to date. We’re learning with every match, and we get to do it all over again in four days when the UWI tournament starts,” Fernandes said in his post-match interview.
