St Lucia beats Cayman to surge to top of Jean Pierre U-16 tourney

St Lu­cia surged to the top of the stand­ings af­ter a com­mand­ing 40-13 de­feat of the Cay­man Is­lands in the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball Tour­na­ment, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) in St Au­gus­tine on Mon­day (April 13).

​The St Lu­cians re­main per­fect with three wins from as many starts, leapfrog­ging hosts T&T in the stand­ings. Their lat­est vic­to­ry was pi­lot­ed by Ne­r­i­ah Charlery. The goal-shoot­er was near­ly flaw­less in the cir­cle, miss­ing on­ly three shots to fin­ish with 26 goals from 29 at­tempts. She was ably sup­port­ed by Nai­ja Fer­di­nand, who pro­vid­ed back­up with 13 goals from 14 tries.

​From the open­ing whis­tle, St Lu­cia’s de­fen­sive pres­sure sti­fled the Cay­man­ian at­tack, lead­ing to a lop­sided 15-3 first quar­ter. While goal-shoot­er Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick (6/11) tried to keep Cay­man Is­lands in the hunt, the St Lu­cian mid­court tran­si­tion proved dif­fi­cult to con­tain. By half­time, the lead had in­creased to 19 (24-5), ef­fec­tive­ly end­ing the con­test and al­low­ing the new leader to cruise through the fi­nal two quar­ters.

​Ear­li­er, Bar­ba­dos main­tained its un­beat­en run with a 23-15 win over Do­mini­ca. Goal-shoot­er Tyra Grif­fith (5/7) and goal-at­tack Bri­an­na Wal­lace (9/19) com­bined to pen­e­trate the Do­mini­can de­fence, en­sur­ing Bar­ba­dos stayed with­in reach of the lead­ers with two wins from two match­es.

​Grena­da se­cured its first win of the cam­paign, rout­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 35-8. Goal-shoot­er Reshon­na Fran­cis starred for the Spice Isle, ac­count­ing for al­most the en­tire­ty of her team’s of­fence with 30 from 38.

Last evening, T&T had a chance to re­claim the top spot in their sched­uled third-round match against Do­mini­ca. To­day, it will be a top-of-the-ta­ble clash be­tween the host team and St Lu­cia at 7 pm.

Yes­ter­day’s re­sults

Bar­ba­dos 23 (Tyra Grif­fith 5/7, Bri­an­na Wal­lace 9/19, Cher­ish Gib­son 9/15) vs Dom­in­ca 15 (Kris­sia Pierre 8/13, Jay­co­l­i­ah Ben­jamin 0/0, Ad­hari Samuel 3/4, Chloie Gre­goire 2/2). Quar­ters: 1st 6-2, 2nd 11-8, 3rd 18-13 (All in favour of Bar­ba­dos).

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 8 (Tane­sha Michael 1/5, Aza­i­lya Si­mon 5/9, Tina Gra­ham 1/3, An­na Thomp­son 1/3) vs Grena­da 35 (Reshon­na Fran­cis 30/38, Aysha-Li Phillip 5/8, Kamia Lewis 0/3). Quar­ters: 1st 11-1, 2nd 20-2, 3rd 29-4 (All in favour of Grena­da).

Cay­man Is­lands 13 (Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick 6/11, Da’Ni­qua How­ell 2/5, Lei’a Grizzel 1/4, Leila Turell 4/5) vs St Lu­cia 40 (Ne­r­i­ah Charley 26/29, Nai­ja Fer­di­nand 13/14, Iyana William 1/3). Quar­ters: 1st 15-3, 2nd 24-5, 3rd 31-9 (All in favour of St Lu­cia).

Stand­ings

Pos*Team*P*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD*Pts

1*St Lu­cia*3*3*0*0*97*44*+53*15

2*T&T*2*2*0*0*73*20*+53*10

3*Bar­ba­dos*2*2*0*0*43*27*+16*10

4*Grena­da*3*1*2*0*59*60*-1*7

5*Cay­man*3*1*2*0*41*97*-56*5

6*Do­mini­ca*2*0*2*0*32*46*-14*2

7*An­tigua/Bar­bu­da*3*0*3*0*38*89*-51*3

Match­es

To­day

Cay­man Is­lands vs Do­mini­ca, 4 pm

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da vs Bar­ba­dos, 5.30 pm

St Lu­cia vs T&T, 7 pm

To­mor­row

Shoot­ing com­pe­ti­tion, 2 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs St Lu­cia, 4 pm

Do­mini­ca vs Grena­da, 5.30 pm

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da vs T&T, 7 pm

Fri­day

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da vs Do­mini­ca, 3 pm

Cay­man Is­lands vs Grena­da, 4.30 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs T&T, 6 pm

Clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny, 7 pm