Daraine Luton, Freelance Writer
National Under-21 shooter Romelda Aiken tussles with Trinidad and Tobago's goalkeep, Alicia Liverpool, for a high ball sent in by centre Peta-Gaye Thomas, during the second quarter of yesterday's first of two practice matches being played at the National Indoor Sports Centre. Aiken scored 27 goals from 36 attempts.-JUNIOR DOWIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
WITH 32 days left before the start
of the World
Youth Netball Championships at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jamaica's Under-21 netballers continue to impress in their pre-tournament warm-up games.
In an entertaining display before a sparsely populated National Indoor Sports Centre yesterday morning, the Joan Cargill-coached team handed a sound 62-38 thrashing to Trinidad and Tobago, this in the first of their two practice matches.
With the game starting at 7:30 a.m., the Jamaicans seemed to be the first ones getting up as they ran amok and boasted a 17-4 scoreline at the end of the first quarter. The Trinidadians responded with some degree of vigour in the second quarter, replacing goal shooter Candica Noel with goal attack Ateisha Noel at the start of that quarter, a move which paid dividends as they got to double figures at halftime, but the Jamaicans still maintained a handsome 34-16 lead.
T&T FIGHT BACK
Ace goal shooter Romelda Aiken, who played just two quarters, had racked up 27 goals from 36 attempts when Cargill asked her to make way for Latoya Thomas up front at the start of the third quarter. But despite Thomas scoring 10 from 15 in that quarter, the Trinidadians, aided by some careless turnovers by Jamaica, out-scored the home side by one goal (10-11). The shouts coming from their bench would suggest they were winning although the scorecard read 44-27 in Jamaica's favour going into the final quarter.
Jamaica scored 18 goals to Trinidad and Tobago's 11 in the final quarter to win by a margin of 24 as Thomas scored 11 from 12 in that period.
MOST ACCURATE
Noel was the most accurate shooter on court, dumping 33 from 38, an 86 per cent conversion rate. Thomas was the next most accurate, shooting 21 from 27 for 77 per cent, Aiken with 27 from 36 had a 75 per cent accuracy rate and goal attack Jodiann Ffrench whose 14 goals came from 22 tries shot at just better than 66 per cent.
Despite expressing satisfac-tion with the win, Cargill said that her team needed to minimise its number of turnovers.
"Those are the aspects of the game that we are working at. We hope to get it right tomorrow (today) as these are the areas we were are trying to work at for the tourna-ment," Cargill said.
Meanwhile, Ayana Hamlet, the captain of the Trinidad and Tobago team, was far from disappointed with the way her side played.
"It was very good. Thinking about the team and how we played, we felt like winners today. We lost by 24 but the spirit of the players was good. We fought right through the game ... we consider our performance as a win," Hamlet said.
The second and final game will be played this morning starting at 9:00 at the same venue.
