RACHEL THOMP­SON-KING

Five new faces have join the T&T net­ball team as the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" look to qual­i­fy for next year's World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships (WNC) which is to be held in Sin­ga­pore. Cen­tre-court play­ers Can­dice Guer­rero and Krista Win­ches­ter and de­fen­sive trio An­gel Ot­t­ley, Daystar Swift and Onel­la Jack were named on the na­tion­al team which is head­ing to St Lu­cia to com­pete in the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) qual­i­fi­er from Ju­ly 22-28. Re­turn­ing are vet­er­an shoot­ers Janelle Bark­er and Anas­ta­sia Wil­son, ex­pe­ri­enced Joelisa Coop­er, the Un­der-21 cap­tain and young­ster Saman­tha Wal­lace, who is al­so a reg­u­lar on the U-21 and U-16 na­tion­al units. Ani­ka� La Roche is the sole de­fend­er mak­ing a re­turn. Rhon­da John-Davis and Tri­cia Liv­er­pool will re­main re­spon­si­ble for the cen­tre-court.

How­ev­er, John-Davis is present­ly in Puer­to Ri­co with the na­tion­al bas­ket­ball team which are com­pet­ing in two com­pe­ti­tions the Cen­trobas­ket Cham­pi­onships and the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games. She is ex­pect­ed to re­turn be­fore the team leaves for St Lu­cia. T&T will open against Cana­da on Ju­ly 23 and will look to take down Bar­ba­dos, Cana­da, USA, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and host coun­try–St Lu­cia as on­ly the first and sec­ond placed coun­tries will ad­vance. Re­gion­al pow­er­house Ja­maica will not have to qual­i­fy for the Sin­ga­pore Cham­pi­onships by virtue of their num­ber four world rank­ing. De­fend­ing cham­pi­on Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Eng­land and Malawi are the oth­er coun­tries that have booked their spots. Sin­ga­pore qual­i­fies as the host. Ten spots re­main to be filled, there­fore, by the top two teams from five re­gions–Amer­i­c­as and Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Eu­rope and Ocea­nia.

Shoot­ers: Janelle Bark­er, Joelisa Coop­er, Saman­tha Wal­lace, Anas­ta­sia Wil­son. Cen­tre-court play­ers: Rhon­da John-Davis, Tri­cia Liv­er­pool, Can­dice Guer­rero, Krista Win­ches­ter. De­fend­ers: Ani­ka� La Roche, An­gel Ot­t­ley, Daystar Swift, Onel­la Jack.