Rachael Thomp­son-King

An Ani­ka La Roche-led na­tion­al net­ball team fo­cus to­day will be on un­ranked Guyana as they open the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) Cham­pi­onships. The Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo will come alive as the Ca­lyp­so Girls seek to send back teams from eight coun­tries in hope of de­fend­ing its AF­NA ti­tle. Coach Jen­nifer Frank and her as­sis­tant Althea Mc­Collin have worked fer­vous­ly for the past few months prepar­ing the lo­cal team to al­so bat­tle against Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, USA, Bermu­da, St Lu­cia, Cana­da The Ja­maicans are cur­rent­ly the high­est-ranked team in the com­pe­ti­tion with T&T next in eighth spot. Bar­ba­dos and St Lu­cia are the on­ly oth­er teams in the top 20 rank­ings in ninth and 15th, re­spec­tive­ly. Cana­da is ranked 25th. The lo­cal out­fit will be equipped with three-time Sport­woman of the Year nom­i­nee (2005, 2007, 2011), de­fend­er Crys­tal George, top shoot­er Anas­ta­sia Wil­son and an ex­pe­ri­enced cen­tre-court with Rhon­da-John-Davis and Tri­cia Liv­er­pool.

Both George and Wil­son have played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Eng­land are ex­pect­ed to lead T&T to the AF­NA crown which they won back in 2010 in St Lu­cia. Man­ag­er Vanes­sa Forde yes­ter­day as­sured last minute that the play­ers have the right mind­set head­ing in­to their open­ing match against the Guyanese. Last night, in the first for­mal event of the AF­NA tour­na­ment, the nine teams gath­ered to­geth­er for the tra­di­tion­al Can­dle Light­ing cer­e­mo­ny and wel­come din­ner at Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. The day's ac­tiv­i­ties will be­gin with the tra­di­tion­al pa­rade of the teams at 4 pm, fol­lowed by the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny then the lo­cal net­ballers will take to court one to meet the Guyanese to start the ac­tion. Fif­teen min­utes lat­er on court two, Grena­da chal­lenges the USA, then Bar­ba­dos faces off against Bermu­da on court three at 6.45 pm. At the com­ple­tion of the T&T/Guyana match, the Sun­shine Girls of Ja­maica play St Lu­cia at 6.45 pm.

More In­fo

Team

Shoot­ers: Janelle Bark­er, Anas­tas­cia Wil­son, Jel­lene Richars­d­son, Joelisa Coop­er

Cen­tre court: Tri­cia Liv­er­pool, Rhon­da John-Davis, Onel­la Jack, Can­dice Guer­rero

De­fences: Crys­tal Ann George, Ali­cia Liv­er­pool, Ani­ka La Roche, Kim­fer Phillip

Staff: Jen­nifer Frank (coach), Althea Mc­Collin (as­sis­tant coach), Vanes­sa Forde (man­ag­er), Wayne Samuel (train­er), Kern Cromwell (pri­ma­ry care)

Sched­ule

To­day

Pa­rade of Teams & Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny, 4 pm

Court 1: T&T vs Guyana, 5.30 pm;

Court 2: Grena­da vs USA, 5.45 pm

Court 3: Bar­ba­dos vs Bermu­da, 6 pm

Court 1 St Lu­cia vs Ja­maica, 6.45 pm

Bye: Cana­da

To­mor­row

Court 1: Guyana vs St Lu­cia, 4 pm

Court 2: USA vs Bar­ba­dos, 4.15 pm

Court 3: T&T vs Cana­da, 4.30 pm

Court 1: Ja­maica vs Grena­da, 5.15 pm

Bye: Bermu­da