The na­tion­al Un­der-16 net­ballers re­turned home Sun­day to a Car­ni­val-like wel­come as par­ents and mem­bers of the lo­cal net­ball fra­ter­ni­ty showed up at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to greet the new­ly crowned Caribbean youth cham­pi­ons.

T&T cap­tured the top prize at the 21st Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's Jean Pierre Youth Cham­pi­onships at the Wildey Gym­na­si­um, Bridgetown, St Michaels, Bar­ba­dos on Sat­ur­day af­ter beat­ing St Lu­cia 34-20 to play un­beat­en in the week-long re­gion­al tour­na­ment.

The young hero­ines were greet­ed by moko-jumbies, dancers and drum­mers who start­ed to per­form be­fore the play­ers emerged from the build­ing.

The ju­nior "ca­lyp­so girls" won sev­er­al spe­cial awards at the six-team tour­na­ment in­clud­ing best de­fend­ing team, best team spir­it, most dis­ci­pline team, best team on pa­rade and team with best goal av­er­age.

Goal-at­tack Shi­an Lewis was named the "Most Valu­able Play­er" of the team and se­cured the "High­est Shoot­er" ac­co­lade.

Team cap­tain Makay­la Grant was ad­judged the "Most Ac­cu­rate Shoot­er" while she and Lewis teamed up with Na­talia Chap­man and Teni­cia Goodridge to lead T&T to win the "Best Shoot­ing" team prize.

Lewis was among six lo­cal play­ers named among the best 16 play­ers of the tour­na­ment. The oth­ers were Ne­fer­ti­ti Bar­ring­ton, Sophia Her­nan­dez, Kalvinelle Roberts, Kelsea Gard­ner, and Aneisha Hyles.

Grant cred­it­ed the team of­fi­cials for guid­ing her team­mates to the ti­tle.

"The coach­es, man­agers and all the tech­ni­cal staff. The train­er and physio, every­one played a role in help­ing us bring home this tro­phy. We were bond­ing and hav­ing fun be­fore the game to loosen up our­selves.

"The train­ing was in­tense but re­al­ly re­ward­ing. We have been train­ing hard, fo­cussing on strat­e­gy. Every­one put in 100 per cent."

Lewis said she was sur­prised to win the MVP tro­phy.

"It was shock­ing and ex­cit­ing," said the mul­ti-tal­ent­ed play­er, who com­pet­ed at the Carif­ta Track and Field Tri­als the day be­fore fly­ing out to Bar­ba­dos to join her net­ball col­leagues. She qual­i­fied to rep­re­sent T&T in the Girls' Un­der-17 800 me­tres and 1,500m at this week­end's Carif­ta Games at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

The 2024 Carif­ta Girls U-17 bronze medal­list shared the chal­lenges of com­pet­ing in both sports.

"It has been very hard as I had train­ing for both the same days but I have been try­ing my best to do both," said Lewis.

Head coach So­journ­er Hyles-Lewis said the vic­to­ry puts net­ball back in­to the spot­light.

"This win gives hope that net­ball is not dead in Trinidad (and To­ba­go). It took us 21 years to bring the tro­phy home. Words can­not ex­press how deeply emo­tion­al I feel about this jour­ney.

Hyles-Lewis, who is the moth­er of Lewis, called for more sup­port for the growth of net­ball among the younger play­ers.

"Cor­po­rate spon­sors need to in­vest in the youth be­cause the youth is the next de­vel­op­ment path to go fur­ther to the se­nior team so we could bring back glo­ry to the sport."

She is long­ing for net­ball to have its own train­ing fa­cil­i­ties, say­ing: "My dream and hope is that we get a net­ball home so young girls will be en­gaged."

Act­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment David Roberts was on hand to con­grat­u­late the tri­umphant squad.

He said, "It is a priv­i­lege to wel­come them on their suc­cess. On be­half of the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe and all at the Min­istry, we would like to con­grat­u­late them. They proved they are the best in the Caribbean. We are ex­cit­ed and look for­ward to the con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with the net­ball as­so­ci­a­tion.

He added: "The up­grade works at the Jean Pierre Net­ball Com­plex is not yet done. There are on­go­ing works at the Jean Pierre Com­plex. It is a fa­cil­i­ty that was built quite a few years ago so we are en­sur­ing we bring it up to the stan­dard that will al­low for con­tin­ued play­ing and prac­tice in terms of net­ball. We have fa­cil­i­tat­ed prac­tic­ing at oth­er fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try (while) the work at the Jean Pierre Com­plex con­tin­ues."

T&T U-16 team ho­n­our roll

Cham­pi­ons

Best de­fend­ing team

Best team spir­it

Most dis­ci­pline team

Best team on pa­rade

Team with best goal av­er­age

Team MVP: Shi­an Lewis

High­est shoot­er: Shi­an Lewis

Most ac­cu­rate shoot­er: Makay­la Grant

Best Shoot­ing Team: Makay­la Grant, Shi­an Lewis, Na­talia Chap­man, Teni­cia Goodridge

Best 16 play­ers of the tour­na­ment: Ne­fer­ti­ti Bar­ring­ton, Sophia Her­nan­dez, Kalvinelle Roberts, Kelsea Gard­ner, Aneisha Hyles, Shi­an Lewis

T&T con­tin­gent

Team: Makay­la Grant (cap­tain), Adan­naya Mar­tin (vice-cap­tain), Ne­fer­ti­ti Bar­ring­ton, Jerusha Des Vi­gnes, Aneisha Hyles, Ama­ra Bha­gan, Kalvinelle Roberts, Rayelle Bo­ca, Kelsea Gard­ner, Sophia Her­nan­dez, Na­talia Chap­man, Teni­cia Goodridge, Joeshel Ja­cob, Shi­an Lewis (util­i­ty play­er), Zwed­i­tu Alexan­der.

Tech­ni­cal staff: So­journ­er Hyles-Lewis (coach), Si­mone Mor­gan (as­sis­tant coach), Jody Sprott (man­ag­er), Runako Git­tens (train­er), David Mack (ther­a­pist).