preparation, play their first match in the fourth Junior Pan American Games in Barbados this evening.

Bermuda have been placed in the same pool as former world champions Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago, with their first round robin match against Chile this evening. Tomorrow the Island will meet Mexico, before playing Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday and Argentina next Wednesday.

The other pool consists of Canada, USA, Barbados, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The Bermuda team flew out on April 9 and stopped off in New York to train on astroturf at Hofstra University in Long Island for two days. That would have been the first time the team has been on astroturf since last July when 29 young players went to Vancouver to gain the knowledge required of that type of surface for the modern game. Currently there are no such surfaces to play or train on in Bermuda.

In 1997 Bermuda surprised everyone by finishing seventh out of 10 nations in Chile, with wins over Venezuela and Paraguay.

Three years ago all the players were new to international competition, whereas the present team has seven players with international experience. From the 1997 junior team, eight players went on to represent the senior national team at the 1998 CAC Games in Venezuela.

The team will be captained in Barbados by Megan Spurling who is currently a member of Kent State's field hockey team, which last year reached the NCAA Division One Tournament. Spurling was a member of the '97 junior team and also represented Bermuda at the 1998 Central American and Caribbean Games.

Spurling will be joined by three other overseas players who also played in the last CAC Games, Caroline Black who is playing for the number two ranked Springfield College of NCAA Division Three, Hannah Ellison of McGill University and Bonnie Leibowitch of Edinburgh University in Scotland.

The remaining 14 younger player players are all based in Bermuda and have been training on grass and indoors in the gym for the last 18 months. Alex Lewis also played in the last CAC Games and will be joined by Megan Leitch and Sharmini Thamotheram who were a part of the 1997 team.

The squad is managed by Sarah Cook, with Liz Osborne the assistant manager.