Rachael Thomp­son-King

Joelisa Coop­er, this year's net­ball nom­i­nee for 2010 First Cit­i­zens Sports Foun­da­tion "Sports­woman of the Year" award, was in smash­ing form on Thurs­day night, but her ef­fort was in vain as her Fire X team fell to the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), 47-44 in the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League.Coop­er missed on­ly one of 24 at­tempts, scor­ing 23 goals for Fire in the Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion match at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua, to con­tin­ue her billing as one of the best shoot­ers in the sport lo­cal­ly.

UTT opened the match with its usu­al shoot­ers na­tion­al cap­tain Janelle Bark­er and Jil­lisa Al­lan.The duo ba­si­cal­ly had the match un­der con­trol in the open­ing stan­za 10-8.Bark­er, whose at­tempts at goal were lim­it­ed to ten, of which she net­ted eight, was re­placed by youth­ful six-foot­er Saman­tha Wal­lace.Her re­place­ment com­bined well with Al­lan, who got in 17 from her 22 tries. The shoot­ers en­sured that UTT re­mained out from in the next two ses­sions, 24-21 at the half and 33-30 in the third.Wal­lace went on to score a match-high 22 from 31 to help in the nar­row three-goal win for UTT, the on­ly un­beat­en team in the di­vi­sion.

Al­so shoot­ing Fire were Afeisha Noel (14/22) and Si­mone Mor­gan (7/14).In the sec­ond match of the night, Po­lice, led by Gur­sh­er Grant, com­plet­ed a 43-33 vic­to­ry over Fire Y.Grant net­ted the bulk of the po­lice of­fi­cers' goals with 36 from 42.

Re­sults

Fire X 44 (Afeisha Noel 14/22, Joelisa Coop­er 23/24, Si­mone Mor­gan 7/14)

vs UTT 47 (Janelle Bark­er 8/10, Jil­lisa Al­lan 17/22, Saman­tha Wal­lace 22/31).

Quar­ter scores: 10-8, 24-21, 33-30 (UTT).

Fire Y 33 (Chevi Ann George 18/30, Nari­ba Grant 15/32)

vs Po­lice 43 (Gur­sh­er Grant 36/42, Rac­quel Rus­sell 4/5, Shiv­augn Skeete 2/7, Oni­ka Fe­lix 1/4).

Quar­ter scores: 15-8, 26-12, 32-21 (Po­lice).