Sto­ries by WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

The Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) women cruised to the play­offs in the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion of the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League on Tues­day, de­spite go­ing down to Jabloteh 27-29 in Group X at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua.

The UTC women ad­vanced to the play­offs on six points along with sec­ond-place Bermudez, cour­tesy of a bet­ter goal dif­fer­ence of six com­pared to Bermudez’s one.

They will now await the top two teams in Group Y that will see the top teams in each group squar­ing off for the cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion ti­tle, while the sec­ond-place teams will play for the third and fourth-place prize.

Jabloteh had no chance of win­ning the crown, but they up­set the ap­ple­cart fol­low­ing La­toya Thomas’ out­stand­ing per­for­mance that pro­duced 20 goals from 35 at­tempts in lead­ing the San Juan unit. Goal at­tack Giselle Hob­son al­so con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to their win­ning ef­fort, with nine from 22 tries that helped them to come from be­hind, af­ter trail­ing 5-8 in the first quar­ter, 11-14 at the half and 22-all at the end of the third.

The de­feat was the first for the UTC women, al­though goal-shoot Avi-Ann Archie sank 13 from 21 tries and Akiela O’Neil had six from 22. The pair of Sta­cy Ann Gill and Aaliyah An­drews had iden­ti­cal fig­ures of four from 11 for the UTC in their los­ing ef­fort.

Ac­tion in Group Y was ex­pect­ed to take place yes­ter­day evening with Fire Ser­vices up against TT Post from 5.30 pm and lead­ers MIC Tigers sched­uled to take on Po­lice.

Mean­while, in the an­oth­er cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion match, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T got the bet­ter Po­lice 44-39. Jil­lisa Brig­gs led the way with 35 from 45 while goal-shoot Ri­hi­an­na Ali added nine from 15 tries. The Po­lice top­score came from the hands of Jil­lisa Al­lan sink­ing 17 from 25 and Tami­ka John who had 12 from 17.

Tues­day’s re­sults

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion

Jabloteh 29 (GS La­toya Thomas 20/35, GA Giselle Hob­son 9/22) vs UTC 27 (GS AviAnn Archie 13/21, GA Akiela O’Neil 6/22, GS Sta­cyAnn Gill 4/11, GS Aaliyah An­drews 4/11). Quar­ter scores: 1st 8-5 (UTC), 2nd 14/11 (UTC), 3rd 22-22.

UTT 44 (GS Rhi­an­na Ali 9/15, GA Jil­lisa Brig­gs 35/45) vs P0lice 39 (GS Melis­sa Thomas 7/14, GA Jil­lisa Al­lan 17/25, GS Tami­ka John 12/17, GA Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons 3/3). Quar­ter scores: 1st 8-7 (Po­lice), 2nd 21-17 (UTT), 3rd 29-29.

Cham­pi­onship X Stand­ings

P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*Pts

1*UTC*4*3*0*1*178*84*94*6

2*Bermudez*4*3*0*1*118*118*0*6

3*Jabloteh*4*2*0*2*118*115*3*4

4*Fire Yth*4*2*0*2*104*146*-42*4

5*Def Force*4*0*0*4*82*137*-55*2

To­day’s match­es

Cham­pi­onship Di­v­sion Group Y

Fire vs TT Post, 5.30 pm

MIC vs Po­lice, 6.45 pm