T&T net­ballers have im­proved with each match played at the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Jean Pierre Un­der-16 Cham­pi­onships, and on Wednes­day evening at the YM­CA court in An­tigua, the na­tion­al team won its fourth con­sec­u­tive match, to sit in third place in the sev­en-team com­pe­ti­tion.

The ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Girls", be­ing coached by Vel­ma Hazel­wood and Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons, com­fort­ably de­feat­ed An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, 45-14 in the fi­nal match of a triple-head­er. Ear­li­er, leader Bar­ba­dos, the on­ly team with­out a loss, beat Grena­da (37-9) and St Lu­cia topped Do­mini­ca (28-23).

Ahead of last night's sched­uled fi­nal round of match­es, St Lu­cia was sit­ting in the sec­ond spot with 21 points, the same as third-place T&T, due to a bet­ter goal dif­fer­ence 56 com­pared to the lat­ter's 53. Un­beat­en Bar­ba­dos leads with full 25 points.

Against An­tigua and Bar­bu­da in the round five match-ups, goal-shoot­er Jil­lisa Brig­gs notched a match-high 31 goals from 39 at­tempts as T&T led at the end of each quar­ter, 17-2 in the first, 25-7 at half time and 38-9 in the third.

In­di­vid­ual shoot­ing cham­pi­on Keleli­cia George, who is third on the over­all shoot­er's sum­ma­ry with 76.92 per cent, was al­so im­pres­sive in the cir­cle for the win­ner.

The na­tion­al ju­nior cap­tain pro­duced 14 off 19 tries in the lop­sided af­fair in which Sher­mi­ah Pac­quette, net­ted the bulk of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da's goals with eight in 12. It was the host coun­try's sixth straight loss, al­ready go­ing down to Do­mini­ca (40-11), St Lu­cia (43-8), Grena­da (26-9), Bar­ba­dos (61-3) and Bermu­da (25-13), re­spec­tive­ly.

Yes­ter­day, T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Dr Pa­tri­cia Butch­er was joy­ful for T&T's suc­cess thus far, fol­low­ing its open­ing loss to the Bar­ba­di­ans (35-22) and then bounc­ing back to de­feat Bermu­da (35-15), Do­mini­ca (30-19), St Lu­cia (28-24) and of course, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

"I am very proud of them. I am look­ing for­ward to them com­ing back and cel­e­brat­ed," said Butch­er. "It is good news for us when we look to the fu­ture es­pe­cial­ly next year when will host the Un­der-21 qual­i­fiers here in T&T."

T&T won the bid to host the qual­i­fiers for the 2021 Net­ball World Youth Cup which will be held in Fi­ji. Pre­vi­ous­ly known as the World Youth Net­ball Cham­pi­onships, the event has been held every four years since 1988.

The ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Girls" are ex­pect­ed to re­turn home tonight.

Re­sults

T&T 45 (Jil­lisa Brig­gs 31/39, Keleli­cia George 14/19) vs An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 14 (Alex­ia Lovelace 1/1, Tal­isa St Louis 5/8, Sher­mi­ah Pac­quette 8/12). Quar­ter scores: 1st. 17-2; 2nd. 25-7; 3rd. 38-9 (All in favour of T&T).

Do­mini­ca 23 (Tre­nese Hamil­ton 20/25, Ethe­line Tele­maque 3/4) vs St Lu­cia 28 (Dasha Eu­gene 19/29, Trenice St Croix 9/17). Quar­ter scores: 1st. 8-5 (St Lu­cia); 2nd. 12-12; 3rd. 21-18 (St Lu­cia).

Bar­ba­dos 37 (Damia Wal­rond 17/20, Chiara Chase 7/10, Sumara Benn 11/19, De­r­i­ca Haynes 2/4) vs Grena­da 9 (Kali­dah An­drew 0/2, Celi­na Brown 3/8, Ray­nia Fred­er­ick 6/12). Quar­ter scores: 1st. 8-1; 2nd. 22-5; 3rd. 29-5 (All in favour of Bar­ba­dos).