Barbados’ Junior netballers defend title, grab lion’s share of awards

The Baby Gems are definitely shining bright like a diamond.

For the third year running, Barbados’ Under-16 netballers are the champions of the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Netball

Championships, after defeating Grenada 27-19 in the finals at the Beausejour Indoor Facility in St Lucia.

They were led to the title by an impressive shooting performance by tournament Most Valuable Player (MVP), goal shoot Keanna Harte who netted 19 of her 21 attempts.

Goal attack Tyesha Trotman scored seven of her 10 attempts, while Tyra Griffith connected on one of her three shots.

Grenada was led by goal shoot Keisha Mathurine who converted 17 of 22 attempts and goal attack Reshonna Francis, who scored two of her three shots.

The victory was Barbados’ sixth on the trot in the tournament and is the third successive time they have played unbeaten to lift the trophy.

Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and hosts St Lucia were the other participating countries.

To stamp their dominance, the Baby Gems also took home the majority of awards on offer.

They won prizes for best uniform, most disciplined team, best spirited team, best goal average and best defending team, and placed second in the shooting competition.

Harte along with Deeya Forde-Haynes, Chelsea Best, Tyesha Trotman and Tyra Griffith were also named in the top 16 players of the tournament.

President of the Barbados Netball Association, Dr Carmeta Douglin was full of praise for the team.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr Douglin said the impressive showing was as a result of hard work and dedication by the juniors.

“A big congratulations to our Baby Bajan Gems who have done extremely well once again at the Jean Pierre Caribbean Netball tournament. They have dominated this tournament for the last three years winning every game that they played and this year in St Lucia they were victorious in every game in the preliminary round, in the knockout and now they are the champions once again, so congratulations to the entire team.

“They usually start very slow in the first and second quarters, but they built the momentum and by the third quarter they really outplayed everyone,” Dr Douglin said.

“They also captured a number of different awards and we would like to congratulate every player.

The president also praised the efforts of the management team led by head coach Cameron Greenidge, assistant coach Jacqueline Browne- McConney, manager Gillian Sealy, trainer Dennis Callender and physiotherapist Chantelle