Goal-shoot Maikea Bram­ble and goal-at­tack Ki­ra Roth­well helped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s se­nior net­ball team open their Amer­i­c­as Net­ball World Cup Qual­i­fiers with a com­fort­able 61-45 win over the Grena­da Spice Girls at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex, Bar­ba­dos on Mon­day.

Af­ter lead­ing T&T to the Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Games (CAC Games) gold medal in Ju­ly, start­ing goal-shoot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph scored 13 of her 14 at­tempts in teh first quar­ter and then sat out the rest of the match. Her first ef­forts helped her team to a 20-7 first-quar­ter score­line.

T&T head coach Liselle John­son’s start­ing team com­prised Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph (GS), Ki­ra Roth­well (GA), Rayann Bris­tol (WA), Shantel Seemu­n­gal (C), Jere­cia McEachrane (WD), Ane­cia Bap­tiste-Ro­driguez (GD)and Shaquan­da Greene-Noel, the goal-keep­er.

Bram­ble re­placed Wal­lace-Joseph, and net­ted all 15 of her at­tempts in the sec­ond quar­ter, while Roth­well, who was al­so per­fect in the first quar­ter with sev­en out of sev­en goals, sank one of her two at­tempts in the sec­ond quar­ter to give T&T a 36-15 half-time lead.

How­ev­er, Grena­da came to life in the third ses­sion when they outscored T&T 14-12 de­spite T&T’s Bram­ble go­ing 8 of 9, and Roth­well 4 of 4 in the ses­sion. Still, the Spice Girls did not cause the CAC cham­pi­ons any se­ri­ous con­cerns, as the quar­ter end­ed with T&T in to­tal con­trol 48-29.

Grena­da kept the pres­sure on T&T’s de­fence in the fi­nal ses­sion, outscor­ing the op­po­si­tion again, this time 16-13, but it was T&T who record­ed the vic­to­ry 61-45 be­hind Roth­well’s per­fect con­nec­tion on her six at­tempts in the fi­nal pe­ri­od, while Bram­ble on­ly had one blun­der in her eight at­tempts. Roth­well fin­ished with 18 goals from 19 at­tempts, and Bram­ble 30 goals from 32 at­tempts.

Grena­da’s goal-at­tack Celi­na Brown con­vert­ed 10 of her 15 at­tempts, while goal-shoot Lot­tysha Cato con­nect­ed on 35 of her 39 at­tempts.

Trinidad and To­ba­go will play St Vin­cent and the Grenadines this af­ter­noon at 6 pm.

Fol­low­ing a round-robin com­pe­ti­tion among the eight par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions, the top two teams will ad­vance to the 2027 Net­ball World Cup in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia, from Au­gust 25 to Sep­tem­ber 5, 2027.

Mean­while, T&T’s for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain, Dr Brid­get Adams, was re-elect­ed pres­i­dent of Net­ball Amer­i­c­as 14 votes to 13 at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM), de­feat­ing im­me­di­ate past 2nd vice pres­i­dent, Javon Ed­wards of St. Maarten.

Adams’ com­pa­tri­ot Coreen David was elect­ed to the post of hon­orary sec­re­tary un­op­posed af­ter in­cum­bent can­di­date, Shirley George-Ben­jamin from An­tigua & Bar­bu­da with­drew dur­ing the meet­ing.

T&T was rep­re­sent­ed at the AGM by Net­ball T&T pres­i­dent Deb­bie-Ann Fran­cois.

T&T NA­TION­AL TEAM

Saman­tha Wal­lace-Joseph

Ki­ra Roth­well

Kali­fa Mc Collin

Maikea Bram­ble

Pearl St John

Shantel Seemu­n­gal

Jere­cia Mc Eachrane

Shaquan­da Greene-Noel

Ane­cia Bap­tiste-Ro­driguez

Neke­sha Gomes

Crys­tal George

Rayann Bris­tol

Man­ag­er – Cyn­thia Stephen­son

Head Coach – Liselle John­son

As­sis­tant Coach – Leslie-Ann Bac­quain

Mas­sage Ther­a­pist – Jerome Brown

Phys­io­ther­a­pist – Cyd­ney Baird

Team Sched­ule

SVG vs TTO - Oct 20, 6pm

TTO vs USA - Oct 21, 8pm

TTO vs Cana­da - Oct 23, 2pm

St Lu­cia vs TTO - Oct 24, 6pm

TTO vs BVI - Oct 25, 6pm

Bar­ba­dos vs TTO - Oct 26, 8pm