Rachael Thomp­son-King

Vet­er­an shoot­er Janelle Bark­er re­turns as cap­tain of the T&T net­ball se­nior team. She will look to pi­lot the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" in the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) qual­i­fi­er in St Lu­cia, seek­ing a spot for next year's World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships in Sin­ga­pore. The lo­cal net­ballers will com­pete against Bar­ba­dos, Cana­da, USA, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and host coun­try–St Lu­cia from Ju­ly 22-28.

Bark­er re­places Rhon­da John-Davis, who skip­pered the team for the past three years–2007 to 2009. "It is al­ways a priv­i­lege to be se­lect­ed cap­tain of a na­tion­al team," said Bark­er yes­ter­day. "Cap­tain­ing a team is a chal­lenge but I am ho­n­oured to get a chance to lead the team again." John-Davis is present­ly in Puer­to Ri­co with the na­tion­al bas­ket­ball team which are com­pet­ing in two com­pe­ti­tions the Cen­trobas­ket Cham­pi­onships. She is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to join the team be­fore their de­par­ture to St Lu­cia. "We still have things to iron out be­fore we leave next week, specif­i­cal­ly the men­tal as­pect of our game. We need to get men­tal­ly strong," said Bark­er, who first cap­tained the na­tion­al team in 2002 when T&T placed sec­ond be­hind St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

She made her de­but on the se­nior team in 1999 af­ter stints on the Un­der-21 and U-19 na­tion­al teams and has rep­re­sent­ed T&T there­after.

"Phys­i­cal­ly we are good but we are look­ing to sort out every­thing on the week­end in the live-in camp." She lost the lead­ing role the fol­low­ing year (2003) though, as the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion went with a more ex­pe­ri­enced play­er in Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons for the World Cham­pi­onships that was held in Ja­maica. T&T fin­ished tenth. Bark­er re­claimed the cap­tain­cy in 2004 and re­mained in the role un­til 2005 when T&T missed out on qual­i­fy­ing for the 2006 Com­mon­wealth Games af­ter plac­ing sec­ond to SVG again. On­ly the win­ner ad­vanced to the Games. Again Bark­er was re­moved from the head spot for Si­mone Bowen-Sandy in 2006.

Bark­er shared that she and vice-cap­tain Ani­ka La Roche, are ready for the chal­lenge. "Every­body has the abil­i­ty and the dri­ve to do well and we will be go­ing in­to the tour­na­ment look­ing for vic­to­ry," stat­ed Bark­er. 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. This means that there are on­ly ten avail­able spots and they will be filled by the top two teams from five re­gions–Amer­i­c­as and Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Eu­rope and Ocea­nia. T&T will open against Cana­da on Ju­ly 23 aim­ing to top the six-team com­pe­ti­tion. On­ly the top two teams will qual­i­fy for the World event.

TEAM

Janelle Bark­er (cap­tain), Joelisa Coop­er, Saman­tha Wal­lace, Anas­ta­sia Wil­son, Rhon­da John-Davis, Can­dice Guer­rero, Krista Win­ches­ter, Ani­ka� La Roche (vice-cap­tain), An­gel Ot­t­ley, Daystar Swift, Onel­la Jack, Kielle Con­nel­ly, Brid­get Adams (coach), Jen­nifer Frank (as­sis­tant coach).