T&T Un­der-16 net­ballers opened with a win in the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Jean Pierre Youth Cham­pi­onships at the Wildey Gym­na­si­um in Bar­ba­dos, on Mon­day evening.

The ju­nior “Ca­lyp­so Girls” de­feat­ed Grena­da 30-19 in the open­ing match of a triple-head­er. Lat­er, St Lu­cia was sched­uled to play An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and host Bar­ba­dos was to take on Do­mini­ca.

Cap­tain Makay­la Grant shined in the shoot­ing cir­cle for T&T. The goal-shoot­er scored a match-high 20 goals from 22 at­tempts in a match which T&T led at the end of each quar­ter–7-3 in the first, 16-10 at the half and 21-14 in the third–be­fore seal­ing the 11-goal win.

Shi­an Lewis, who start­ed the match in the cen­tre-court, was ro­tat­ed in­to the shoot­ing cir­cle, re­plac­ing open­ing goal-at­tack Teni­cia Goodridge (1/1) and net­ted nine goals from 15 tries.

For the Grena­di­ans, who opened with a 34-19 win against Do­mini­ca on Sun­day, Zai­da Joseph scored the bulk of the goals 18 in 20.

On the open­ing day, Bar­ba­dos kicked off its ti­tle de­fence of the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball ti­tle with an em­phat­ic 46-7 thump­ing of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

The Ba­by Gems, as they are af­fec­tion­ate­ly known, are seek­ing their fourth straight ti­tle.

The home side got off to a fast start, rush­ing out to an 11-2 lead in the open­ing quar­ter and by the half had ex­tend­ed their ad­van­tage to 19 (22-3).

The Bar­ba­di­ans con­tin­ued to put their feet on the gas and held a mam­moth 32-4 lead at the end of the third quar­ter.

Goal-shoot­er Makel Al­leyne led the way for the Ba­by Gems scor­ing 35 of her 42 at­tempts, Tye­sha Trot­man net­ted sev­en of eight shots while Tyra Grif­fith made four of her nine at­tempts.

The tour­na­ment con­tin­ues to­day with T&T chas­ing its sec­ond win. The ju­nior “Ca­lyp­so Girls” will face An­tigua and Bar­bu­da fol­low­ing the clash be­tween Do­mini­ca and Saint Lu­cia.

Re­sults

Yes­ter­day

T&T 30 (Makay­la Grant 20/22, Teni­cia Goodridge 1/1, Shi­an Lewis scored 9/15) vs Grena­da 19 (Zai­da Joseph Scored 18/20, Reshon­na Fran­cis 1/4). Quar­ter scores: 1st 7-3, 2nd 16-10, 3rd, 21-14 (All in favour of T&T)

Sun­day

Do­mini­ca 19 vs Grena­da 34

Bar­ba­dos 46 vs An­tigua and Bar­bu­da 7

Match­es

Tues­day

Do­mini­ca vs Saint Lu­cia, 6 pm

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da vs T&T, 7.15 pm

Thurs­day

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da vs Grena­da, 5.30 pm

Do­mini­ca vs &T, 6.45 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs St Lu­cia, 8 pm