Jameela Mc­Carthy and Ker­ry McMil­lan were es­sen­tial in help­ing De­fence Force fin­ish run­ner-up in the Mixed Team Cat­e­go­ry of the Flori­da Net­ball Clas­sic which took place on the week­end in the Unit­ed States.

The lo­cal army/coast­guard com­bi­na­tion unit reached the fi­nal against Sparkles Net­ball Lovers and went un­der 12-10 at the Coral Springs Gym­na­si­um on Sun­day evening.

It was a much-im­proved show­ing for the Car­lette Nurse-coached De­fence Force in its sec­ond ap­pear­ance at the Clas­sic which had two teams fea­tured in the com­pe­ti­tion. The oth­er team played in the Open Women's Di­vi­sion along with Fire Ser­vice led by Si­mone Mor­gan, a for­mer na­tion­al shoot­er, but nei­ther fin­ished among the top three de­spite hav­ing great in the pre­lim­i­nary round.

"We were pleas­ant­ly sur­prised at the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion then which in­clud­ed teams from Ja­maica, Cana­da and Bar­ba­dos, to name a few. The stan­dard of play was high and teams com­prised past play­ers with years of in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence," said Nurse, a for­mer se­nior na­tion­al cap­tain.

"At the end of the Tour­na­ment last year, we were un­able to make the ros­trum. We went back to plan­ning and strate­gis­ing. We struc­tured our team to in­clude a mixed team cat­e­go­ry.

"A great team ef­fort as this sec­ond ap­pear­ance will in­spire the TTDF net­ball to 2020."

The sol­dier/sailor com­bi­na­tion team rep­re­sent­ed by Mc Carthy, McMil­lan, She­ba Lyons and Melis­sa Snag­gs al­so fin­ished sec­ond in the team shoot­ing com­pe­ti­tion while in the in­di­vid­ual shoot­ing con­test, McMil­lan placed sec­ond.

De­fence Force, who had an­oth­er for­mer se­nior net­baller as its as­sis­tant coach So­journ­er Hyles-Lewis, pro­gressed af­ter elim­i­nat­ing Up­set­ters, 13-10 in over­time af­ter the scores were tied at nine at the end of reg­u­la­tion time (10 min­utes per half) in the four-team com­pe­ti­tion. This af­ter strug­gling in the first round, win­ning one match against fel­low semi­fi­nal­ist Up­set­ters, 7-3 and los­ing to Sparkles Net­ball Lovers (12-8) and Rock­ers (10-9).

The lo­cal teams had good show­ings in the Open Women's Di­vi­sion round-robin play with both De­fence Force and Fire win­ning three match­es and los­ing one in their re­spec­tive groups.

Re­sults

Mixed Team Di­vi­sion

Fi­nal

De­fence Force 10 vs Sparkles Net­ball Lovers 12

Semi­fi­nal

De­fence Force (9) 13 vs Up­pset­ters (9) 10

First round

De­fence Force 7 vs Up­pset­ters 3

Sparkles Net­ball Lovers 12 vs De­fence Force 8

De­fence Force 9 vs Rock­ers 10

Women's Open Di­vi­sion

Round of 16: De­fence Force 8 vs Rock­ers 10

Group C

First round

De­fence Force 17 vs JCF NC 4

Un­touch­ables 10 vs De­fence Force 9

De­fence Force 14 vs Ris­ing Stars 6

Liguanea Unit­ed 7 vs De­fence Force 14

Rangers 13 vs De­fence 11

Group B

First round

Fire 4 vs Up­pset­ters 12

Fire 10 vs Riv­o­li 4

Nga Huia Ferns 10 vs Fire 13

Fire 8 vs Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion 16

Las­co 8 vs Fire 14