Piton Girlz Positive Ahead of Windwards Football Tournament

Saint Lucia’s national women’s football team will return to competitive action this weekend, kicking off their campaign at the Windward Islands Football Association (WIFA) tournament in St Vincent. The week-long tournament starts Sunday at Victoria Park, with the Piton Girlz head coach expressing confidence in good outcomes for the mostly locally based squad.

For the four participating teams – Saint Lucia, hosts SVG, Barbados and Dominica – the tournament will serve as an ideal lead-in to the Concacaf Women’s Qualifiers, which begin in November. Drawn in Pool A, Saint Lucia will square off against Mexico, Puerto Rico, St Vincent & the Grenadines and the US Virgin Islands.

“It’s a good preparation at least for the World Cup Qualifiers,” head coach Francis “Panko” McDonald St Lucia Times. “Obviously, these teams are preparing as well for World Cup Qualifiers. So we ourselves have to get in gear … So it’s a good little competition.”

McDonald said he is positive ahead of the WIFA tournament, which will feature mainly home-based players. Cassandra Shepherd, the leading scorer in the just-concluded national tournament, will captain Saint Lucia. She led the champions Canaries in that competition. Supporting her as vice-captain will be another Canaries player, Racquel John, a graduate of Central Christian College of Kansas.

Supporting Shepherd up front will be the dynamic Krysan St Louis. A graduate of Texas A&M International University, Eggs has been a consistent goalscorer for her school and for Saint Lucia through various age-group competitions. The 22-year-old has also played in the semi-professional ranks in the US.

The squad also includes exciting youngsters like Amaya Emmanuel and Kayla Polius. Emmanuel tallied 11 goals in last year’s Concacaf Under-15 competition, whilst Polius netted 11 times in this summer’s Caribbean Football Union Under-14 Challenge.

McDonald noted that Saint Lucia has several players in the collegiate ranks in the US and Canada, and that play professionally in England. He said that he is hopeful of being able to bring in the likes of Arnicka Louis, Kirsheema Ince and Jasmine Auguste to reinforce the squad.

“At the right time, I think these [overseas] girls will be featured in the upcoming World Cup Qualifiers,” he said. “We wanted to focus on starting to rebuild from our local payers here, and they would be joining us sometime in the coming weeks.”

Team Saint Lucia:

Goalkeepers:

Kenna Lionel

Renala Francis

Defenders:

Racquel John

Steffany Allain

Hayla Samuel

Megesh Savery

Marissa Duncan

Midfielders:

Shamalyn Albert