​T&T re­peat as cham­pi­ons of the Jean Pierre Caribbean Youth Net­ball Tour­na­ment, de­fend­ing their crown on home soil.

​On Fri­day at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (UWI SPEC) in St Au­gus­tine, the ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Girls" out­played Bar­ba­dos 42-21 to se­cure the ti­tle for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year.

​The de­cider be­tween the top two teams in the com­pe­ti­tion lived up to the hype in the open­ing ex­change. Bar­ba­dos sig­nalled its in­tent ear­ly, scor­ing off the very first pass and edg­ing the first quar­ter 9-8. How­ev­er, T&T’s su­pe­ri­or con­di­tion­ing and tac­ti­cal dis­ci­pline soon took over, as they surged to a 19-14 lead by half­time and broke the game open in the third quar­ter to lead 33-16.

​The na­tioanl ju­nior net­ballers cleaned up their pass­es and suf­fo­cat­ed the Bar­ba­di­an mo­men­tum, de­light­ing a rau­cous home crowd that kept the stands shak­ing with chants of "T-T-O!"

Goal-shoot­er Curleen Lara was once again spear­head­ed the at­tack, net­ting 33 goals from 40 at­tempts, while goal-at­tack Zewdi­tu Alexan­der pro­vid­ed vi­tal sup­port with nine goals from 11 tries. For Bar­ba­dos, goal-at­tack Cher­ish Gib­son led the re­sis­tance with 15 goals off 21 at­tempts, but it wasn't enough to stop the dom­i­nant T&T side.

​The path to the tro­phy was paved by a re­lent­less of­fen­sive dis­play through­out the 22nd edi­tion of the tour­na­ment. On Thurs­day night, T&T sent a warn­ing shot across the Caribbean with a 51-9 de­mo­li­tion of An­tigua & Bar­bu­da. In that fix­ture, Lara an­chored the vic­to­ry with in­cred­i­ble vol­ume by net­ting 37 goals, while Alexan­der showed re­mark­able ef­fi­cien­cy by sink­ing 14 of her 15 shots.

​The de­fen­sive unit was equal­ly im­pres­sive; T&T’s press was so ef­fec­tive they held An­tigua & Bar­bu­da score­less for much of the third quar­ter. While Bar­ba­dos kept their hopes alive ear­li­er in the week with a hard-fought 36-27 win over St Lu­cia, they ul­ti­mate­ly crashed against the de­fen­sive wall built by a ded­i­cat­ed tech­ni­cal team.

​Re­flect­ing on the achieve­ment of win­ning back-to-back ti­tles in front of a home au­di­ence, head coach So­journ­er "Suzie" Hyles-Lewis was moved by the sig­nif­i­cance of the mo­ment.

​"It was a priv­i­lege and an ho­n­our to ac­tu­al­ly re­peat this vic­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly at home, in front of friends, sup­port­ers, and well-wish­ers," Hyles-Lewis said. "I think ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment from the staff was key, be­cause all of us had the same mis­sion: to com­plete the task at the end. I ded­i­cate this vic­to­ry to our well-round­ed tech­ni­cal staff and the sol­id foun­da­tion we have with these girls."

​The vic­to­ry was a to­tal team ef­fort be­hind the scenes, sup­port­ed by as­sis­tant coach Si­mone Mor­gan, man­ag­er Jody Sprott, phys­io­ther­a­pist Runako Git­tens, and mas­sage ther­a­pist David Mack.

The Bar­ba­di­ans did not go home emp­ty-hand­ed as they placed sec­ond with Grena­da in third place.

Fri­day's Re­sults

Yes­ter­day

Bar­ba­dos 21 (Tyra Grif­fith 3/5, Cher­ish Gib­son 15/21, Bri­an­na Wal­lace 1/2) vs T&T 42 (Curleen Lara 33/40, Zewdi­tu Alexan­der 9/11). Quar­ters: 1st 9-8 (Bar­ba­dos), 2nd 19-14 (T&T), 3rd 33-16 (T&T).

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 11 (Tina Gra­ham 3/9, Akai­lya Si­mon 5/12, Tane­sha Michae 3/4, Makay­la Scott 0/1) vs Do­mini­ca 21 (Kris­sia Pierre 8/12, Chloie Gre­goire 12/15, Ad­hari Samuel 1/4). Quar­ters: 1st 6-3, 11-4, 3rd 16-11

Cay­man Is­lands 20 (Se­ri­ah Fred­er­ick 19/22, Leila Turell 0/0, D How­ell 1/1) vs Grena­da 43 (Aysha-Li Phillip 9/15, Reshon­na Fran­cis 23/36, Keona Bur­ris 1/1, Kamia Lewis 0/0). Quar­ters: 1st 10-5, 2nd 22-10, 3rd 34-15 (All in favour of Grena­da).

Thurs­day's Re­sults

An­tigua & Bar­bu­da 9 (Tane­sha Michael 2/4, Akai­lya Si­mon 4/7, An­na Thomp­son 0/1, Tina Gra­ham 3/3) vs T&T 51 (Curleen Lara 37/45, Aaliyah Ed­wards 0/0, Akai­da Muir 0/0, Zewdi­tu Alexan­der 14/15). Quar­ters: 1st 9-3, 2nd 20-6, 3rd 37-6 (All in favour of T&T).

Do­mini­ca 18 (Kris­sia Pierre 8/10, Jay­co­l­i­ah Ben­jamin 8/8, Chloie Gre­goire 2/2) vs Grena­da 29 (Aysha-Li Phillip 4/6, Reshon­na Fran­cis 17/19, Kamia Lewis 8/8). Quar­ters: 1st 7-7, 2nd 14-12 (Grena­da), 3rd 18-14 (Grena­da).

Bar­ba­dos 36 (Bri­an­na Wal­lace 2/3, Cher­ish Gib­son 32/39, Tyra Grif­fith 2/6) vs St Lu­cia 27 (Ne­r­i­ah Charlery 20/34, Nai­ja Fer­di­nand 7/11). Quar­ters: 1st 8-6 (St Lu­cia), 2nd 19-13 (Bar­ba­dos), 3rd 26-20 (Bar­ba­dos).

Fi­nal stand­ings

Team*P*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*Pts

1*T&T*6*6*0*0*253*79*+174*12

2*Bar­ba­dos*6*5*0*1*181*126*+55*10

3*Grena­da*6*4*0*2*164*130*+34*8

4*St. Lu­cia*6*3*0*3*176*156*+20*6

5*Do­mini­ca*6*2*0*4*104*152*-48*4

6*Cay­man*6*1*0*5*100*206*-106*2

7*An­tigua/Bar­bu­da*6*0*0*6*71*200*-129*0