Na­tion­al Un­der-21 net­ballers booked their spot at next year’s Net­ball World Youth Cup (NWYC) af­ter beat­ing Grena­da 61-39 to se­cure third place at the Amer­i­c­as Re­gion Qual­i­fiers at the Paul Chon­chon Hall in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guade­loupe on Sun­day.

The lo­cal team start­ed slow­ly as the Grena­di­ans net­ted the open­ing goal be­fore T&T evened the score at 1-1. Grena­da fired back but cap­tain Des­tiny Williams and her team­mates re­spond­ed to the score at 2-2. The U-21 “Ca­lyp­so Girls” then went ahead for the first time and main­tained the lead un­til the fi­nal whis­tle.

The na­tion­al play­ers were up by three goals (13-10) in the first quar­ter and ex­tend­ed the ad­van­tage to eight at half­time (28-20).

On the re­sump­tion, T&T pressed and in­creased the mar­gin to ten goals (33-23), then 13 (41-28) and even­tu­al­ly to 15 (43-28). The lo­cal de­fend­ers con­tained the Grena­di­an shoot­ers to en­sure the lead stayed at 15 at the end of the third in­ter­val (45-30).

With World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion at stake, the lo­cal play­ers dom­i­nat­ed their Caribbean neigh­bours thanks to ag­gres­sive at­tack­ing and su­pe­ri­or fit­ness, outscor­ing the Grena­di­ans 16-9 in the fi­nal quar­ter to take the match 61-39.

Fif­teen-year-old Shi­an Lewis was vot­ed the “Play­er of the Match”. Lewis, the youngest play­er on the team, played in the cen­tre po­si­tion.

Head coach Kali­fa Mc­Collin-Lopez praised the ef­forts of the play­ers af­ter the match, say­ing: “I am ex­cit­ed for the girls. They have worked hard to get here.”

Mc Col­in-Lopez added that she was al­so thank­ful the team has se­cured its place in Gibral­tar.

‘’I know the girls still have more to give. I am still not sat­is­fied be­cause we were aim­ing for a top two places and I know they could have done it.”

The for­mer pro­fes­sion­al play­er shared that more play­ers will be re­cruit­ed in prepa­ra­tion for the 2025 World Youth Cup.

“When we get back (home), we are def­i­nite­ly go­ing to go scout­ing in some of the rur­al ar­eas for girls who are tall, ex­treme­ly strong es­pe­cial­ly go­ing in­to Gibral­tar be­cause that (World Cup) is a dif­fer­ent ball game.”

She added that she was en­cour­aged by the team’s per­for­mance against Ja­maica in the semi­fi­nal round on Sat­ur­day. Ja­maica won 40-33.

“We went out in that game ex­pect­ing to win be­cause (our girls) could have. For the first time in a long time that any T&T team would have held Ja­maica down in three quar­ters. I think it was just for us to press for­ward on the gas. The girls were not able to do that.”

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Sher­ry-ann Black­burn al­so of­fered con­grat­u­la­tions to the play­ers.

“T&T is elat­ed by the qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Every­one worked hard to­geth­er to make this dream a re­al­i­ty,” said Black­burn.

She ex­plained that the prepa­ra­tion for the World Youth Cup con­tin­ues.

“The road ahead is long. There is much to do and we are up to the chal­lenge to re­claim the game for Net­ball T&T. All hands on deck, as we work to­geth­er to make this dream for our young­sters both on and off the field a re­al­i­ty, they’re de­serv­ing of it.”

In the fi­nal which fol­lowed un­beat­en Ja­maica de­feat­ed Bar­ba­dos, 54-29, to take the top spot in the Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers. Both teams have al­so qual­i­fied for the World Youth Cup.

The na­tion­al con­tin­gent is sched­uled to re­turn home on Tues­day night.

Re­sults

Sun­day

Fi­nal

Ja­maica 54 vs Bar­ba­dos 29

Third place play-off

T&T 61 vs Grena­da 39

Sat­ur­day

7th/8th po­si­tion play off: An­tigua and Bar­budu 31 vs Cay­man Is­lands 39

5th/6th posi­ition play off: Cana­da 49 vs St. Maarten 21

Semi­fi­nals

Bar­ba­dos 63 vs Grena­da 45

Ja­ma­cia 40 vs T&T 33

Fri­day

Grena­da 49 vs Cay­man Is­lands 27

St Mar­teen 42 vs Guade­loupe 13

Thurs­day

Ja­maica 83 vs Grena­da 28

Bar­ba­dos 45- vsT&T 44

Grena­da 37 vs Cana­da 36

Bar­ba­dos 113 vs Guade­loupe 4

Wednes­day

Ja­maica 71 vs Cay­man Is­lan­da 9

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 32 vs St. Maarten 22

Ja­maica 65 vs Cana­da 16

T&T 66 vs An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 17

Tues­day

T&T 106 vs Guade­loupe 4

Bar­ba­dos 90 vs An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 10

T& T 62 vs St Maarten 23

Mon­day

Cana­da 35 vs Cay­man Is­lands 16

Bar­ba­dos 75 vs St. Maarten 18

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 50 vs Guade­loupe 5