Rachael Thom­spon-King

Po­lice made it clear on Sat­ur­day that it has all in­ten­tions of cop­ping the in­au­gur­al Steve Sar­jeant Chal­lenge Tro­phy with a huge 84�15 vic­to­ry over Bermudez in the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League. The Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion match was played at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua. Lead­ing the way was ju­nior na­tion­al shoot­er Kali­fa Mc­Collin with a whop­ping 59 goals from 67 at­tempts, her best shoot­ing dis­play for the sea­son. The young­ster's ef­fort, along with some tough de­fence from Ani­ka La Roche and Si­mone Bowen, were too much for Bermudez which could not con­nect a goal in the first quar­ter while the po­lice of­fi­cers reg­is­tered 23. The Bermudez team fi­nal­ly got some goals in the sec­ond ses­sion, to trail 41�6 at half­time. Four more goals were added in the third (64�10) and five in the fi­nal pe­ri­od, to go down by 69 goals. The oth­er match in the chal­lenge was far more com­pet­i­tive with Fire wast­ing a chance to get re­venge on the un­de­feat­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), re­lin­quish­ing a ten-goal half­time lead, to end tied at 40.

Goal shoot­er Anas­ta­sia Wil­son, who pro­duced a match-high 33 off 43, had Fire ahead for much of the match, lead­ing 15�6 in the open­ing pe­ri­od and 23�13 at the half. But UTT, be­hind the shoot­ing of Saman­tha Wal­lace, fought back in the third ses­sion, outscor­ing the fire­women, 16�7 and to hold on­ly a one-goal (30-29) deficit, head­ing in­to the fi­nal quar­ter. UTT again outscored Fire by a small­er mar­gin though, 11�10, but it was enough to hold on for the draw. The bat­tle for the Jean Pierre Chal­lenge Tro­phy al­so be­gan on Sat­ur­day with two in­tense en­coun­ters which saw Jabloteh and Fire emerge as win­ners in their re­spec­tive match­es. Goal at­tack Saman­tha James' 25 off 42 guid­ed Jabloteh to a 45�39 vic­to­ry over Po­lice while Fire, thanks to 31 from 46 from Nari­ba Grant, burned the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), 39�27.

Re­sults

Steve Sar­jeant Chal­lenge (Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion)

Bermudez 15 (Kathy James 7/16, Ju­lia Brit­to 8/18) vs Po­lice 84 (Gushi­er Grant 20/28, Kali­fa Mc­Collin 59/67, Eu­phemia Hug­gins 5/10). Quar­ter scores: 23�0, 41�6, 64�10 (Po­lice).

Fire 40 (Anas­ta­sia Wil­son 33/43, Si­mone Mor­gan 7/13, Jel­lene Richard­son 0/2) vs UTT 40 (Saman­tha Wal­lace 28/36, Janelle Bark­er 4/5, Jil­lisa Al­lan 8/8). Quar­ter scores: 15�6, 23�13, 30�29 (Fire). Quar­ter scores: 7/7, 20�17, 32�28 (Jabloteh).

Jean Pierre Chal­lenge (Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion)

Fire 39 (Nari­ba Grant 31/46, Lee-Ann O'Brien 8/14) vs UWI 27 (Abeni Tay­lor 21/34, Roan­ta Dal­rym­ple 0/4, Jose­helle For­tune 2/6, Avian Archie 4/12). Quar­ter scores: 11�4, 19�11, 30�19 (Fire).