Paul-Andre Walker, Staff Reporter
ROMELDA AIKEN was simply too hot for the England Under-21 side last night as the visitors were crushed 55-39 by their Jamaican counterparts at the National Indoor Sports Centre.
Aiken was in lethal form and scored 48 goals from 52 attempts in a World Championship warm-up game that was over very early.
Jamaica, like Waulgrovians in their match against the Englishwomen the night before, got off to a wonderful start, running out to an 11-9 lead.
That was extended to 31-18 in the second quarter, thanks in no small part to the passing of Jodi-Ann French at goal attack.
The third quarter was more of the same as the Jamaicans had an easy time of lobbing high balls into the 6 foot, four inch Aiken, who converted time and time again as the team end the stanza at 44-26.
Aiken was injured towards the end of the game and the English girls tried to make a run at the lead, but it was too little, too late.
After the game England coach Colette Thomson said her team made too many mistakes.
"I'm a little disappointed with the score. Obviously we wanted to be a little closer. We have a lot of hard work to do, we made a lot of errors that were of our making and we have to eliminate those for the next match," Thomson said.
Jamaica's coach, Joan Cargill, said her team's hard work had paid off.
"I know that we worked at some situational plans and they worked out today. The success we got came from the hard work this morning," Cargill said.
The next match between the teams will be at the same venue tomorrow.
