T&T U-16s netballers dominate Dominica to reclaim top spot

RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor – Sport

rachael.king@guardian.co.tt

Goal­keep­er and cap­tain Jerusha Des Vi­gnes and goal-de­fence Ke­lis Find­ley was ruth­less on de­fence for Team T&T (TTO) in their third match of the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball Tour­na­ment. They held op­po­nent Do­mini­ca to a soli­tary goal in the sec­ond half to emerge with a mas­sive 44-9 win on Tues­day night.

​Their ef­fort, com­bined with those of goal-shoot­er Curleen Lara and goal-at­tack Zewdi­tu Alexan­der, in­vit­ed a stand­ing ova­tion and chants of “T-T-O” from the ap­pre­cia­tive sup­port­ers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) in St Au­gus­tine.

Coach So­journ­er “Suzie” Hyles-Lewis was im­pressed by her team’s show­ing in the lop­sided win.

​“To­day’s (Tues­day) per­for­mance against Do­mini­ca was very com­posed and pro­fes­sion­al,” said Hyles-Lewis. “The team showed good con­trol of the game, stuck to the struc­ture, and made smart de­ci­sions un­der pres­sure. It wasn’t just about flair – it was about dis­ci­pline, pa­tience, and ex­e­cut­ing the game plan, which is ex­act­ly what you want at this stage of the com­pe­ti­tion.”

​Do­mini­ca had the first pass, and goal at­tack Kris­sia Pierre scored the open­ing goal. Lara re­spond­ed to tie the score for T&T, then scored four unan­swered goals to put her team ahead 5-1. The teams bat­tled through the pe­ri­od, but by the end of the first quar­ter, T&T held an 11-4 ad­van­tage.

​In the sec­ond pe­ri­od, the T&T Un­der-16s’ in­ten­si­ty dropped slight­ly. They man­aged to add eight goals to their tal­ly while Do­mini­ca matched its first-quar­ter out­put of four goals, leav­ing T&T ahead 19-8 at the half.

​On the re­sump­tion, T&T sti­fled the op­po­si­tion. Ar­i­an­nah Mark, Brit­tney Roberts, and Khe­myah An­der­son, who shared wing-de­fence du­ties, joined Des Vi­gnes and Find­ley to form an im­pen­e­tra­ble wall, al­low­ing Do­mini­ca ze­ro goals in the third quar­ter. T&T led 30-8 head­ing in­to the fi­nal ses­sion.

This dom­i­nat­ing dis­play was par­tic­u­lar­ly recog­nised by Hyles-Lewis, a for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er.

​“From a de­fen­sive per­spec­tive, that sec­ond-half ef­fort stands out. To lim­it Do­mini­ca to just one goal shows ex­cel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion, po­si­tion­ing, and trust across the de­fen­sive unit,” Hyles-Lewis not­ed. “As a for­mer de­fend­er, you ap­pre­ci­ate that kind of dis­ci­pline – stay­ing com­pact, read­ing the play ear­ly, and not switch­ing off. That’s the kind of foun­da­tion that wins tour­na­ments.”

​The fourth quar­ter was just as re­stric­tive. T&T utilised a full-court press to win balls and con­vert them in­to goals. Do­mini­ca’s lone goal in the fi­nal pe­ri­od came from Jay­co­l­i­ah Ben­jamin, while T&T added 14 goals to seal the 35-goal vic­to­ry. The win moved T&T back in­to the top spot of the stand­ings with six points from three match­es.

Lara end­ed with an im­pres­sive 33 goals from 36 at­tempts, and Alexan­der net­ted 11 off 16 for the win­ner.

“Win­ning three straight says a lot about the group. It shows con­sis­ten­cy, strong men­tal­i­ty, and a re­al un­der­stand­ing of their roles. They’re not just win­ning – they’re build­ing mo­men­tum, con­fi­dence, and be­lief with each game, which is cru­cial head­ing in­to the tougher stages,” said Hyles-Lewis.

T&T was sched­uled to face one of its tough­est op­po­nents in the tour­na­ment, St Lu­cia, last night. The St Lu­cians had pre­vi­ous­ly moved to the top of the ta­ble on Mon­day while T&T was on a bye. How­ev­er, on Tues­day evening, St Lu­cia was edged 33-32 by Grena­da. In the day’s oth­er match, Bar­ba­dos re­mained un­beat­en with a 42-17 win over the Cay­man Is­lands.

Tues­day’s re­sults

T&T 44 (Curleen Lara 33/36, Zewdi­tu Alexan­der 11/16) vs Do­mini­ca 9 (Chloie Gre­goire 1/2, Kris­sia Pierre 6/8, Ad­hari Samuel 1/3, Jay­co­l­i­ah Ben­jamin 1/1). Quar­ters: 1st 11-4, 2nd 19-8, 3rd 30-8 (All in favour of T&T).

Bar­ba­dos 42 (Bri­an­na Wal­lace 2/5, Cher­ish Gib­son 22/28, Tyra Grif­fith 18/39) vs Cay­man Is­lands 17 (Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick 15/22, Lei’a Grizzel 2/3). Quar­ters: 1st 8-4, 2nd 21-6, 3rd 33-11 (All in favour of Bar­ba­dos).

Grena­da 33 (Aysha-Li Phillip-Shep­herd 5/7, Reshon­na Fran­cis 27/34, Kamia Lewis 1/3) vs St Lu­cia 32 (Ne­r­i­ah Charley 24/28, Nai­ja Fer­di­nand 8/11). Quar­ters: 1st 10-5 (Grena­da), 2nd 17-14 (Grena­da), 3rd 23-23.

Stand­ings

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

1*T&T*3*3*0*0*117*29*+88*6

2*Bar­ba­dos*3*3*0*0*85*44*+41*6

3*St*Lu­cia*4*3*0*1*129*77*+52*6

4*Grena­da*4*2*0*2*92*92*0*4

5*Cay­man*4*1*0*3*58*139*-81*2

6*Do­mini­ca*3*0*0*3*41*90*-49*0

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

Match­es

To­day

Shoot­ing com­pe­ti­tion, 2 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs St Lu­cia, 4 pm

Do­mini­ca vs Grena­da, 5.30 pm

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da vs T&T, 7 pm

To­mor­row

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da vs Do­mini­ca, 3 pm

Cay­man Is­lands vs Grena­da, 4.30 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs T&T, 6 pm

Clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny, 7 pm