CAS­TRIES – With a four-mem­ber team slat­ed to com­pete at the up­com­ing ANOCES Un­der-23 3×3 Bas­ket­ball tour­na­ment, the Saint Lu­cia Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion (SLBF) said it has its eyes set on qual­i­fy­ing for the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games.

The SLBF re­cent­ly named the quar­tet, which in­cludes Sid­ney Di­di­er, a se­nior na­tion­al play­er and Ju­nior Dupre, both of whom played in last year’s FI­BA Caribbean 3×3 events in The Ba­hamas, along with Jaza­ni­ah Blan­chard and Aji­ni Fer­di­nand.

The ANOCES tour­na­ment will take place on May 16-17 at the Mul­ti­pur­pose Sports Com­plex in the British Vir­gin Is­lands.

Ranked sec­ond be­hind St Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lu­cia will al­so com­pete with Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, and St Vin­cent & the Grenadines. The trav­el­ling par­ty in­cludes coach Chris­tus Michel, ref­er­ee Shadrack Theodore and team man­ag­er Neil Joseph.

How­ev­er, Pres­i­dent of the SLBF, Glen Guiste said qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the CAC Games was the team’s main ob­jec­tive.

“That’s where the game is go­ing with FI­BA. The U23 World Cup, al­so CAC games in Ju­ly, will be in the U23 cat­e­go­ry. This al­so gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to qual­i­fy for the said CAC Games – the win­dow clos­es in June.

“So there’s a lot hing­ing on this tour­na­ment. Apart from a de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty for us, it’s al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to qual­i­fy for CAC games for the first time in bas­ket­ball,” Guiste said in a re­port in the St Lu­cia Times.

The CAC Games will be held in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, from Ju­ly 24 to Au­gust 8.

CMC rb