​Curleen Lara’s sharp shoot­ing, com­bined with the de­fen­sive duo of cap­tain Jerusha Des Vi­gnes and vice-cap­tain Khe­myah An­der­son, helped Trinidad and To­ba­go seal their sec­ond straight win when the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball Tour­na­ment con­tin­ued on Sun­day.

​The ju­nior “Ca­lyp­so Girls” claimed an­oth­er com­fort­able vic­to­ry in the un­der-16 com­pe­ti­tion, de­feat­ing Grena­da 32-12 in the fi­nal match of a triple-head­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) in St Au­gus­tine.

​Coach So­journ­er “Suzie” Hyles-Lewis opened with goal-shoot­er Venus Kirk, one of the stand­out play­ers in the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons’ huge 41-8 open­ing win over the Cay­man Is­lands, and goal-at­tack Zewdi­tu Alexan­der. The duo kept Team TTO nar­row­ly ahead 4-2 in a low-scor­ing first quar­ter.

To start the sec­ond, Hyles-Lewis, who is be­ing as­sist­ed by fel­low for­mer na­tion­al play­er Si­mone Mor­gan, shift­ed Kirk to goal-at­tack and brought Lara on at goal-shoot­er for the re­main­ing three quar­ters. The change paid im­me­di­ate div­i­dends; the new part­ner­ship pro­duced 12 goals in the pe­ri­od, while goal­keep­er Des Vi­gnes and goal de­fence An­der­son, with sup­port from wing de­fence Ar­i­an­nah Mark, re­strict­ed the Grena­di­ans to just three goals, leav­ing T&T ahead 16-5 at the half.

​The host team, through Lara, Kirk and, lat­er on, Alexan­der, who al­so wore the wing-at­tack bib, con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate through­out the sec­ond half. Al­so, through cen­tre Kelsea Gard­ner, who manned the cen­tre-court area through­out the af­fair, play in the third quar­ter re­mained firm­ly in T&T’s favour, al­low­ing the ju­nior “Ca­lyp­so Girls” to main­tain a dou­ble-dig­it lead, 16 (25-9), head­ing in­to the fi­nal pe­ri­od.

​It was much of the same in the fourth quar­ter as T&T cruised to a 20-goal vic­to­ry. Lara was the star of the cir­cle, shoot­ing with 92% ac­cu­ra­cy and notch­ing a match-high 22 goals from 24 at­tempts. Kirk fin­ished with sev­en from 15, while Alexan­der added the oth­er three goals from four tries.

​Reshon­na Fran­cis net­ted 10 of 13 at­tempts to lead the scor­ing for Grena­da, who suf­fered their sec­ond de­feat af­ter los­ing 20-12 to Bar­ba­dos on open­ing day.

In Sun­day’s ear­li­er match­es, St Lu­cia earned its sec­ond win by beat­ing Do­mini­ca 23-17, while the Cay­man Is­lands team bounced back from its loss to T&T to out­last An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 20-16.

​For the St Lu­cians, Ne­r­i­ah Charlery (13/16) and Nai­ja Fer­di­nand (10/12) han­dled the scor­ing. For Do­mini­ca, who had a bye on Sat­ur­day, Kris­sia Pierre was the top shoot­er with 12 from 17. Lat­er in the evening, Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick guid­ed the Cay­man Is­lands to vic­to­ry, con­nect­ing on 19 of 30 at­tempts.

T&T had a day off yes­ter­day but will re­turn to the court to­day to face Do­mini­ca at 7 pm.

Re­sults

Sun­day

Grena­da 12 (Aysha-Li Phillip 2/4, Reshon­na Fran­cis 10/13, Kamia Lewis 0/0) vs T&T 32 (Venus Kirk 7/15, Zewdi­tu Alexan­der 3/4, Curleen Lara 22/24). Quar­ters: 1st 4-2, 2nd 16-5, 3rd 25-9 (All in favour of T&T).

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 16 (Tina Gra­ham 3/10, Aza­i­lya Si­mon 7/10, Tane­sha Michael 6/7) vs Cay­man Is­lands 20 (Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick 19/30, Da’Ni­qua How­ell 1/4). Quar­ters: 1st 4-4, 2nd 9-8 (Cay­man), 3rd 15-15.

Do­mini­ca 17 (Chloie Gre­goire 2/2, Jay­co­l­i­ah Ben­jamin 0/3, Kris­sia Pierre 12/17, Catali­na Bon­gouneau 4/11) vs St Lu­cia 23 (Ne­r­i­ah Charlery 13/16, Nai­ja Fer­di­nand 10/12). Quar­ters: 1st 4-2, 2nd 12-8, 3rd 1-13 (All in favour of St Lu­cia).

Sat­ur­day

T&T 41 (Cur­lene Lara 19/23, Venus Kirk 18/26, Akai­da Muir 4/5, Zewdi­tu Alexan­der 0/0) vs Cay­man Is­lands 8 (Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick 7/9, Lei’a Grizzel 1/3, Leila Turell 0/0). Quar­ters: 1st 12-1, 2nd 24-2, 3rd 31-3 (All in favour of TTO).

Bar­ba­dos 20 (Bri­an­na Wal­lace 0/2, Cher­ish Gib­son 7/10, Tyra Grif­fith 12/21) vs Grena­da 12 (Reshon­na Fran­cis 4/4, Kamia Lewis 2/2, Aysha-Li Phillip 6/11). Quar­ters: 1st 6-2, 2nd 10-4, 3rd 13-8 (All in favour of Bar­ba­dos).

An­tigua Bar­bu­da 14 (Aza­i­lya Si­mon 5/11, Tina Gra­ham 9/13, Makay­la Scott 0/1, Sasheel Lewin 0/1) vs St Lu­cia 34 (Ne­r­i­ah Charlery 31/37, Nai­ja Fe­d­i­nand 3/4). Quar­ters: 1st 6-4, 2nd 16-10, 3rd 23-14 (All in favour of St Lu­cia).

To­day’s match­es

Grena­da vs St Lu­cia, 4 pm

Bar­ba­dos vs Cay­man, 5.30 pm

T&T vs Do­mini­ca, 7 pm

Pos Team P W L D GF GA GD Pts

1 TTO 2 2 0 0 73 20 +53 10

2 St Lu­cia 2 2 0 0 57 31 +26 10

3 Bar­ba­dos 1 1 0 0 20 12 +8 5

4 Cay­man Is­lAnds 2 1 1 0 28 57 -29 5

5 Do­mini­ca 1 0 1 0 17 23 -6 1

6 Grena­da 2 0 2 0 24 52 -28 2

7 An­tigua/Bar­bu­da 2 0 2 0 30 54 -24 2