RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

Onel­la Jack-Hill, Shantel Seemu­n­gal and Rhon­da John-Davis were spe­cial­ly recog­nised by the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) at its end of year func­tion on Sat­ur­day night at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre in St Ann's.

The three play­ers are mem­bers of the se­nior na­tion­al team, who were cel­e­brat­ed on the night, along with mem­bers of the ju­nior na­tion­al team, who placed fourth at the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's Jean Pierre Un­der-16 Cham­pi­onships held in An­tigua.

Jack-Hill re­ceived the "Best De­fen­sive Play­er" award, Seemu­n­gal was the "Most Im­proved Play­er" and John-Davis, who was ab­sent at the func­tion due to work com­mit­ments, was ho­n­oured for be­ing the "Most Capped Ac­tive Play­er".

The net­ballers were pre­sent­ed their awards by Min­is­ter of Sports Sham­fa Cud­joe, who was part of the head ta­ble which in­clud­ed TTNA pres­i­dent Dr Pa­tri­cia Buc­ther, Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho, chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), Sen­a­tor Joan Yuille Williams and Patrice Charles, the di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport in the Min­istry of Sports. Al­so in at­ten­dance was An­tho­ny Creed, ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er Sports De­vel­op­ment at SporTT.

"I am very pleased by the work that the TTNA has been do­ing in T&T," said the Sports Min­is­ter. "I can say it is a labour of love be­cause net­ball is a sport that is not of­ten sup­port­ed with as much fi­nances as the oth­ers (sports). I am al­ways amazed by the sport."

The se­nior "Ca­lyp­so Girls" won the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) Cham­pi­onships played in Bar­ba­dos in Au­gust through Sep­tem­ber, to qual­i­fy for next year's Net­ball World Cup in Liv­er­pool, Eng­land.

Jack-Hill and Seemu­n­gal along with their team­mates, in­clud­ing pro­fes­sion­al Saman­tha Wal­lace, Daystar Swift, Tahi­rah Hollingsworth and Sh­ernece Seemu­n­gal along with coach Wes­ley "Pepe" Gomes, Grace Parkin­son-Grif­fith and train­er Wayne Samuel re­ceived to­kens of ap­pre­ci­a­tion pre­sent­ed by the Sports Min­is­ter, who again praised them for their out­stand­ing per­for­mance in qual­i­fy­ing for the World event set for Ju­ly.

The oth­ers were Kali­fa Mc­Collin, Joelisa Coop­er, Shaquan­da Greene, Kem­ba Dun­can and Can­dice Guerero, who were ex­cused. Mc­Collin has al­ready re­turned to Eng­land to con­tin­ue her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer.

Butch­er used the oc­ca­sion to thank all for their con­tri­bu­tions which aid­ed in the suc­cess of the team and hopes their sup­port will con­tin­ue in­to the fu­ture, high­light­ing that it will serve the na­tion­al net­ballers well.

"You will reap the re­wards when you pre­pare prop­er­ly for that event," said Butch­er, look­ing ahead to the World tour­na­ment. "Vi­su­alise the end re­sult that you want and work to­wards it. I know you have the tal­ent and our na­tion is be­hind you. We look for­ward to your best ef­fort."

Al­so ho­n­oured were ju­nior play­er­sAishah Ab­dul-Ha­keem, Kayshan­na Dun­can, Kel­ele­cia George, Ash­ley Greig, Tami­ah Her­nan­dez , Chi­na­ka Lind­say, Es­ther James, Akiela O’Neil, Kaliyah Stephen, Ke­la­iah Stew­art, Phoebe Warn­er, Des­tiny Williams and their coach Vel­ma Hazel­wood and Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons, the as­sis­tant coach.