JAMAICA will send a 16-member hockey team, including new six newcomers, to the July 21-31 Central America and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

Dadreann Clarke of St Andrew Hockey Club will captain the team, supported by vice-captain Shareeka Elliott, with Kamiesha Erskine, Sauwana Gordon, Chantal Russell, Sharee Russell, Shana Kaye Tullonge, and Shakera Williams making up the unit with experience, along with goalkeepers Lori Ann McIintosh, and Fayona Mullings.

Newcomers Chakira Airey, Tashana Edwards, Kamille Griffiths, Racene Johnson, Trudy-Ann Knight, and Demi Nicholson will bring youthful vigour, speed and variety to Jamaica, which placed fifth at the 2006 CAC Games in the Dominican Republic.

National coach Christene Bartley said “it was a fairly young team and we are trying to adapt them to certain things in training”.

Drawn in Pool B, Jamaica will play Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

Defensive midfield skipper Clarke noted Jamaica are ranked above Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and “on paper we are expected to be one of the two teams advancing to the next round”.

Jamaica are world ranked at number 39, with Dominican Republic at 58, and Puerto Rico without a ranking.

Clarke, a former Under-21 national player who made her senior team debut at the 2006 CAC Games, believed that the team “have heart and skill, and just need exposure”. Under the guidance of coach Bartley, assistant coach Andrea Cobran and technical director Dr Michelle Holt, the skipper said the team, in training since April, had been working on set plays, especially for the new players, to show what they would experience in the tournament abroad.

Andrea Jackson, Shanar Whyte, Sasha Gale Thomas, and Cameal Palmer have been selected as standbys for the team, which are undergoing intensive training on Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, which will include practice matches.

The CAC team is scheduled to leave the island on July 19.