 and the U.S. Virgin Islands produced creditable results at the Pan-American La Crosse Association Pala Sixes Cup, which ended in Kingston on Saturday. Mariah Ram-Harak recaps a tournament that fielded 15 teams from 10 nations from across the Pan-American region. Sixes is an incredibly fast-paced compact version of La Crosse, and it captured the imagination of fans in Kingston last week. Three days of pulsating action culminated with the championship matches at the Michael University College on Saturday. In as a woman's tournament, Jamaica was forced to withdraw ahead of their fifth place playoff with the USVI due to their lone goalkeeper, Shannon Greyhump, suffering a heat stroke. It meant they finished last as per tournament rules, while clearing the way for the USVI, a team with limited tournament prep to finish fifth. We are so excited to have this opportunity to play in this tournament. None of our girls had ever played Sixes before. We never even had a chance to practice before we got here. And the improvement along the way was absolutely amazing. The heart that our girls and ladies put into this event, and to get to be here with all these other teams having this experience has been such a gift. The Haudenosaunee Nation repeated as women's champions after a comfortable 22-11 win over Perterico in the championship match. Coach Tim Bomberi and Captain Bean Minnerd shared their thoughts on the tournament. Perico was a pretty tough test there, and it was a good championship at the end there. But yeah, we're feeling pretty good. The girls are feeling good. I'm really happy with their progress and how well they're gelling together and doing the things that we want them to do. I have an easy time because these girls are my family, they're my sisters. So they've been around me for years, they're used to me, so it's not just a brand new thing to them. So I work, it's a fun job I love having, it's getting the energy going and making sure that me being a vet, I'm teaching the right things coming down and showing what it takes to put in the hard work to get to where we are today. Wait, hold on, who are the Haudenosaunee? We are a, we have our own confederacy. We have Ms. Anandaga Mohawkayugosanaka Tescarora. We're from Anandaga Nation, which is outside of Syracuse, New York, all the way through Niagara Falls into Six Nations, which is in Canada. We have our Master of Society, La Crosse was given by the creator as a gift to play for him. And obviously it's in our ceremonies, it's in our roots. So traditionally women don't play La Crosse because of the wooden stick that wooden sticks made from hickory. We give life, so when we are in our periods, we ruin that medicine. That's why we play with plastic sticks, but we don't touch it, all of us don't touch the wooden stick. We stick to our traditional culture and respect it. We just play with the plastic stick, but we still, the game gives us so much love and healing and power that we're able to still use it with the plastic sticks. But Haudenosaunee, we're just a confederacy all around, upstate New York and up to Canada. Jamaica feel the two men seems finishing fifth and eighth respectively, with the USVI ending sixth. But despite not securing a medal, President of the Jamaica La Crosse Association, Calvert Hutchinson says he's pleased with the trajectory of the sport in the country. I think development was the winner for us. The fact that we were able to host a diaspora team along with a local bread team for our males and we end up playing each other in one of the rounds to see both of our teams going up against each other, all local bread team players and all diaspora players. It was a testament of the development that is taking place on the grounds and in terms of the ladies, we have some of our local bread high school girls who are now studying and playing La Crosse overseas who are the top scorers in some of the games and I can't thank them enough and my team, the coaches for the work that they have done and continue to do and development is a winner today. Puerto Rico won the men's title after easing by crowd favourite Mexico 22-15 in the decider. We kind of just found our rhythm after the first game, we played a tremendous defensive tournament and by us playing great defensive kind of opened up our offense and really just tied everything together so I think we just kind of played all around good La Crosse the whole tournament. Sixth is the version of La Crosse that will be contested out the 2020 Olympics and teams from the Caribbean and wider Pan Am region are excited about the possibility of making it to LA. It's great that it's now in the Olympics in terms of our chances I think we just got to get better day by day. We got to kind of build off of what we did here this weekend. I think we tied a lot of good things together but we still have some room for improvement as an organization and building this team going forward so you know I think really just using this as a building block to build up what we want to get to in the Olympics but you know I couldn't be happier for these guys today. We're hoping to get financial support so we can start preparing for 2028 preparation we need to get our team in place we need to get them training on a regular basis and it's going to be the sixth discipline that is there. This event is a springboard for continuous development in that arena so we can prepare ourselves to be victorious at the Olympics in 2028. Our whole mission is to grow the game in the VI and we are looking forward to doing this by starting more clinics more programs for youth on all three islands and to get ready to build these teams 2028 LA here we come. Six is done and dusted what a feat for Jamaica and you know I had the opportunity to cover a couple across athletes in case you missed it I spoke to the president Calbert Hutchinson and I'm really proud of you know what this group of athletes have been doing the organization and I think they're on to something big remember La Crosse will be in the Olympics in 2028 so I think you know they're getting a good feel getting ready and if they continue competing like they are right now it will be good competition come 2028. Yeah and great that they were able to host a Hemispheric tournament here in Kingston Jamaica and it's quite a nice sport as a spectator it is something I would watch because it it is it displays a lot of skill you know and I think it's a sport that has potential to grow. Yeah and like so many of the sports Lance and Mariah where you have a traditional version that is generally longer you know in La Crosse have the sixes competition that is shorter that is yeah the T20 style La Crosse and that made it exciting for the fans as well I had the opportunity to go by the Micah University College on the opening day I think it was saw a little bit of Panama the defending men's champions and they were really good valley for money and everybody was just really into the action and really engaged with what was going on and it really was a good look and it will be nice to see the sport return to Jamaica at such a high level with quality competition again and maybe we'll be fortunate with some Olympic qualifying tournaments and matches. Yeah looking forward to that well let's take a quick commercial break we'll be right back.