Nigel Si­mon

Leon Pan­tor, cap­tain of the T&T Un­der-19 rug­by squad which end­ed third at the North Amer­i­can Caribbean Rug­by As­so­ci­a­tion (NACRA) Cham­pi­onship in Or­lan­do, Flori­da, is one of nine lo­cal play­ers be­ing tar­get­ed for a par­tial ath­let­ic schol­ar­ship by Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty.This was stat­ed by coach of the young T&T rug­by squad and Leon's fa­ther, Wil­let Wayne Pan­ton, in a re­cent in­ter­view on the team's re­turn from the eight-team event.

The lo­cal squad, un­der sec­ond year coach, Pan­tor, who had a fifth-placed fin­ish on de­but last year, start­ed off this year's com­pe­ti­tion with a 47�5 thrash­ing of Cay­man Is­lands in their quar­ter­fi­nal on Sun­day, Ju­ly 12, at the Om­ni Re­sort, while USA South 'A' trounced Bermu­da 24�0.A day ear­li­er, Mex­i­co crushed USA South 'B' 29�8, while Bar­ba­dos pun­ished Turks & Caicos, 43�7.

How­ev­er, in the semi­fi­nals on Tues­day, Ju­ly 15, T&T found it­self in a 15�0 hole be­fore scor­ing 13 points in a nar­row two-points loss, while USA South A crushed Bar­ba­dos 32�7.In the play­off for third spot, T&T tram­pled Bar­ba­dos 34�11 while Mex­i­co re­tained its crown with a com­pre­hen­sive 24�0 blow-out of USA South 'A'.

Com­ment­ing on the team's per­for­mance, Pan­tor said he was sat­is­fied with the im­prove­ment."Based on the ex­po­sure and ex­pe­ri­ence of the team, I feel very proud about the ef­fort. We start­ed with a very easy win against Cay­man Is­lands, and in the semi­fi­nals af­ter falling be­hind to cham­pi­ons, we were able to get our­selves back in­to the match, but we just came up short," he said.

Pan­tor said he was very op­ti­mistic about the team's chances next year.Pan­tor said: "What was im­pres­sive is that most of the play­ers, close to 15 of them, will be avail­able to play in this same age-group tour­na­ment next year. So it goes to show that our six-months of de­vel­op­men­tal work and prepa­ra­tions made a big im­pact and our fu­ture now looks bright."

Pan­tor was al­so hap­py to dis­close that based on the per­for­mances, a num­ber of play­ers were of­fered par­tial schol­ar­ships in the USA, which they are now look­ing at."There were a num­ber of scouts from US schools and clubs at the event and they were very im­pressed by the tal­ent of the T&T team. And it was through their dis­plays they were able to at­tract the in­ter­est of the Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty Di­vi­sion One team scouts and coach­es," Pan­tor said.

Oth­er play­ers who were of­fered par­tial schol­ar­ships in­clude Shaquille Dyke, Jean-Pierre Williams, Sher­ad Fer­reira, Odell Bac­chus, Wasim Ol­livierre, Melek Fras­er, Em­manuel Joseph and Matheus Matthews."They were of­fered par­tial schol­ar­ships which means the school will not be cov­er­ing the full cost of their tu­ition, so we are now ex­plor­ing our op­tions to de­ter­mine whether or not the play­ers will be tak­ing up the of­fer," end­ed Pan­tor.

In the oth­er play­off match­es, USA South 'B' copped sev­enth spot via its 17�0 blank­ing of Bermu­da, while Cay­man Is­lands took home the plate ti­tle af­ter bat­tling past Turks & Caicos 29�26.Ear­li­er on in the Plate semi­fi­nals, Cay­man Is­lands stopped USA South '' 20�8 and Turks & Caicos topped Bermu­da, 17�11.