Rachael Thomp­son-King

Fierce shoot­ing by Sophia Harp­er steered TSTT to a 26�17 vic­to­ry over De­fence Force in the open­ing Al­ter­nate Di­vi­sion Y match of the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League on Thurs­day at East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua. Af­ter trail­ing 5�8, 11�2 at the end of the first two quar­ters, TSTT ral­lied main­ly through the huge ef­fort from Harp­er, who net­ted 20 goals from 31 at­tempts. Af­ter the half-time break, a more ag­gres­sive and fo­cused TSTT tight­ened its de­fence and was able to re­strict the army/coast­guard unit to on­ly three goals in the third ses­sion, while scor­ing six.

Head­ing in­to the fi­nal ses­sion lead­ing by four goals, TSTT stuck to its game plan, and like the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od, lim­it­ed its op­po­nent to on­ly three more goals as against the six it scored. Make­da Pierre led the De­fence Force shoot­ing with 14 off 27 tries. New­com­ers Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Caribbean (USC) and Pris­ons got it first taste of league ac­tion when the debu­tantes met in the sec­ond match. Pris­ons tri­umphed 33�24 in the ex­cit­ing clash. Lavaughn O'Neil top scored with 22 from 38 for Pris­ons, which on­ly trailed at the end of the first pe­ri­od, 9�6. Pris­ons lead 15�12 and 23�19 at the end of the next two quar­ters be­fore claim­ing the win by nine goals.

To­day, play in the Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion be­gins with the four teams in the cat­e­go­ry com­pet­ing. Fans will be pay­ing close at­ten­tion to these match­es as there were key changes made with the four teams. For­mer De­fence Force stand­out play­er, Rhon­da John-Davis, a cen­tre-court spe­cial­ist, has switched sides and will be adorn­ing a Po­lice uni­form. For­mer na­tion­al shoot­er Janelle Bark­er will take the court with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), af­ter leav­ing Fire. Na­tion­al Un­der-21 cap­tain Joelisa Coop­er, who was a mem­ber of UTT last sea­son, will lead the Fire team. The fire­women has al­so re­cruit­ed top ju­nior play­er Klene Lewis to its out­fit. An ad­di­tion which seems to be worth­while as the Fire has al­ready tast­ed suc­cess, win­ning the open­ing day knock­out ti­tle. Match­es in the Al­ter­na­tive Di­vi­sion will start to­day's ac­tion at 12.30 pm.

Re­sults

Al­ter­na­tive Di­vi­sion Y

De­fence Force 17 (Cheryl Milling­ton 1/6, Make­da Pierre 14/27, Ha­jaar Nor­eiga 2/2) vs TSTT 26 (Sophia Harp­er 20/31, Janelle Wil­son 6/10).

Quar­ter scores: 8�5 De­fence Force, 12�11 De­fence Force, 18�14 TSTT.

USC 24 (Bronel­lia Corn­wall 13/24, Gabriel­la Good­ing 11/20) vs Pris­ons 33 (Lavaughn O'Neil 22/38, Ayan­na Aaron 11/15). Quar­ter scores: 9�6 USC, 15�12 Pris­ons, 23�19 Pris­ons.

To­day's match­es

Al­ter­na­tive X: Fire vs Po­lice, 12.30 pm.

Al­ter­na­tive Y: Hol­i­day Snacks vs Cav­a­liers, 1.45 pm.

Al­ter­na­tive X: Bermudez vs Cli­co Jabloteh, 3 pm.

Al­ter­na­tive Y: Pris­ons vs TSTT, 4.15 pm.

Cham­pi­onships Di­vi­sion

UTT vs Po­lice, 5.30 pm.

De­fence Force vs Fire, 6.45 pm.