Jul.27.2010

Yesterday morning T&T  senior men's  waterpolo team  played the first game of the 21st Central American and Caribbean( CAC) Games  Water Polo Tournament in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico . T&T  suffered a 21-8 loss to Venezuela .In their second game against Curacao  T&T rebounded from their earlier stumble to emerge 17-10 victors.
This morning  T&T will clash with Guatemala .the next match up is a tough encounter against hosts Puerto Rico at 8:00 p.m.  The tournament will continue during the week with a seven team round-robin and placing rounds played on Friday and Saturday.

Match details Venezulea vs T&T:In the first quarter Venezuela  went ahead 0-2  T&T's  before Matthew George pulled one back .Venezuela shotback to a 4-1 lead. George (M) then  drilled a shot low to the right corner  to cut the margin to 4-2. The teams traded goals before the end of the quarter with Christopher George putting away a pass from Kris Thomas .The South Americans held a 5-3 lead. T&T had opportunties to level the score .However  several shots from Kristian Bocage and Delano Otero missed their mark.

T&T drew first blood two minutes into the second quarter when Kristian Bocage passed perfectly to T&T captain  John Littlepage who “did the business” to put T&T within one point of their opponents. Venezuela kept up the pressure and capitalized on two defensive errors to make the score 7-4 with 4 minutes left to half-time. The tense battle continued with resolute defending by  Littlepage and  George(Matthew)  in front of Yannick Hudson who turned back several shots. With 1:29 to the midway break T&T capitalized on a man advantage, Bocage passing to Christopher George to narrow the Venezuela lead to 7-5.

The pattern of play continued in the second half with T&T scoring with 6:24 left in the period when Christopher George drew two defenders in the hole and Christopher Forte taking advantage of space to open his account and put T&T to within one point. Sadly this was as close as T&T would get as the Venezuelans rattled-in six unanswered goals before Bocage scored with 1:52 to the period’s end 13-7, Venezuela scored twice  for the score to stand at 7-15 after three periods.

After two minutes of the last quarter, Venezuela led 17-7, Coach Kevin Foster pulled his starting line-up with the evening's must win game looming. The bench including alternate goal-keeper Andrew Too-A-Foo all getting important tournament minutes in preparation for a tough week’s tournament. Before the end Kris Thomas would find the back of the net and Venezuela would score four more time for a final tally of  21-8

The day’s second affair was a must win game for T&T  playing with purpose T&T  scored early  with Christopher (Atlas ) George scoring three times, the third having to shake off two defenders and Delano Otero striking on a quick counter from a Yannick Hutson pass to take the 4-0 advantage over Curacao with 3:32 left in the first period. Curacao pulled two back before Kris (Sniper) Thomas did what he does best, scoreing from the top, for the last goal of the period with 24 seconds left 5-2.

With 5:58 to go in the second Mathew George finds Littlepage on the far side of the cage and he made no mistake 6-2. The battle raged on as the referees were letting the guys play and it was a struggle to defend the much bigger Antillean hole sets. After letting in one goal T&T would get two back, first from Simon Chin Lee and with 26 seconds to half-time Littlepage tapping in after a patient pass around both goals coming while on a man advantage 8-3.

During the first three minutes of the third period T&T scored three times to Curacao’s once. Mathew George scoring a penalty drawn by Littlepage, Forte on a man advantage and Christopher George on a pass from his brother Matthew 11-4. Between then and the end of the period the opposition capitalized on a defensive mix-up, a three on two and a penalty to end the period 11-7.

With designs on dragging themselves back into the game Curacao forced Hudson to save twice in the opening minute of the last period before breeching his custody at the 6:52 mark 11-8. But Christopher George fought off his defender to get the goal back immediately 12-8 with 6:33 left in the game. Forte buries one,  Littlepage scores on a man-advantage and Bocage shrugs off a defender and slots home 15-8 at the 3:12 mark. Curacao would score twice but in between Littlepage would squeeze a ball through to Forte to score and he would draw a penalty for Matthew George to score. The game ending at 17-10.

With seven teams in the tournament, Columbia, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Curacao Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago, the Warriors must register three victories to reach the semi-finals.