Nigel Si­mon

Saman­tha Wal­lace, T&T's Ca­lyp­so Girls stand­out goal-at­tack at the 14th Net­ball World Cup held in Syd­ney Aus­tralia ear­li­er this year is set to join the pro­fes­sion­al ranks.

In an ear­ly Christ­mas gift to her­self, the pro­lif­ic Wal­lace, was one of four new play­ers snapped up by Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks for the 2016 Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per­league.

The Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per­league is Eng­land's top net­ball league con­sist­ing of eight fran­chis­es and be­gan in the 2005/2006 sea­son. Team Bath are the most suc­cess­ful team in the his­to­ry of the league.

The To­co-born Wal­lace's move to Eng­land from lo­cal team, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T comes af­ter Wal­lace, a stand­out at the World Ju­nior Un­der-21 Cham­pi­onship a few years back in Scot­land made an im­pres­sive de­but at the Net­ball World Cup where she led the T&T at­tack with 280 goals from 324 at­tempts in eight match­es.

In a tough four-team group in­vov­ing the top two ranked teams in the world in host Aus­tralia and New Zealand as well as Caribbean neigh­bours, Wal­lace man­aged to hold her own with im­pres­sive shoot­ing dis­plays.

Against the Aussies, Wal­lace who made her na­tion­al de­but against Cana­da in 2008 tal­lied 11 of 14 at­tempts in a 73-32 loss and then con­vert­ed 24 of 34 in a 74-38 de­feat at the hands of the Ki­wis be­fore dom­i­nat­ing the Ba­jans, with 37 of 42 at­tempts in a 55-39 win to end the first round.

The soon to be 21-year-old T&T shoot­er who stands at 193 cen­treme­tre­sa and was a for­mer Caribbean Un­der-16 "Most Valu­able Play­er" awardee raised her game an­oth­er lev­el in the qual­i­fy­ing round for po­si­tions ninth to 16th, scor­ing 30 of 34 in a 66-39 win over Zam­bia; 27 from 31 in a 75-32 beat­ing of Sin­ga­pore, and 49-from 59 to lead T&T past Samoa.

Her best was yet to come as Wal­lace then went for 49 from 54 at­tempts in an over­time ninth to 12th semi­fi­nal win over Scot­land, in­clud­ing nine of her team's ten goals in the ex­tra-time pe­ri­od.

And in her fi­nal match at the World Cup, Wal­lace who turns 21 next month sur­passed the 50-goals mark with 53 from 60 at­tempts to lead T&T to a 64-51 win over Samoa and ninth spot.

In ad­di­tion to the T&T stand­out, New Zealand vet­er­an and World Cup gold medal­list Jo­line Hen­ry, Aus­tralian Sam May and El­la Clark of Eng­land will be turn­ing out for the Hat­field-based fran­chise which boast a win­ning com­bi­na­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and home grown tal­ent on its 15-play­er ros­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to the league's Web site, the en­tire squad that has rep­re­sent­ed their coun­tries at var­i­ous age cat­e­gories and around the globe, makes for a team ready to go one step fur­ther in 2016 and bring home the ti­tle of Su­per League Cham­pi­ons.

The Mav­er­icks al­so be­lieve they have the best depth of tal­ent in the shoot­ing cir­cle of all the Su­per­league teams with four to five shoot­ers be­ing 6 feet 3 inch­es tall and high­ly ver­sa­tile play­ers.

"This squad is the cul­mi­na­tion of six months hard work from both the coach­es and the staff en­abling us to se­cure such a fan­tas­tic group of play­ers," said Sam Bird, coach.

"I would like to thank the spon­sors and our fans for their sup­port mak­ing it pos­si­ble for the Board to pro­vide the re­sources to sign these elite ath­letes."

"My aim was al­ways to find a mix of ex­pe­ri­enced Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­als (Louisa, Lay­la, Lind­say) with ris­ing Eng­land stars (Vicky, George, So­phie, Scar­lett) and out­stand­ing im­ports (Saman­tha, Sam and Jo­line)," con­tin­ued Bird

She added "I be­lieve we have achieved that aim with all our play­ers all ex­cep­tion­al in their own right. Fi­nal­ly, I want­ed play­ers who were pas­sion­ate about play­ing for Mav­er­icks and to lead us in our best ef­forts to win this year. We can­not wait to get start­ed! Come and watch!"

Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks have set out our stall for 2016 and have every in­ten­tion to im­prove on our 2nd place in 2015. We thrive on your sup­port so please some along and cheer on your team! Tick­ets for all home match­es in the 2016 sea­son are avail­able here.

The Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icksVi­tal­i­ty Su­per­league Squad 2016

Lay­la Gus­coth GD/GK Cap­tain

Lind­say Ke­able GK/GD Vice Cap­tain (Eng­land High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme)

Jo­line Jo­hans­son (nee Hen­ry) C/WD (Over­seas Im­port: New Zealand)

Saman­tha Wal­lace GS/GA (Over­seas Im­port: Trinidad and To­ba­go)

Sam May WD/GD (Over­seas Im­port: Aus­tralia)

Louisa Wat­son (nee Brown­field) GA/GS

George Fish­er GS/GA (Eng­land High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme)

El­la Clark GA/GS

So­phie Han­kin GA/WA

Scar­lett Williams WD/C/WA

Michelle Drayne C/WA/WD (North­ern Ire­land Net­ball)

So­phie Carter WA/C (Eng­land High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme)

Bethany Suther­land WD (Scot­land Net­ball)

Vicky Oyeso­la WD/GD (Eng­land High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme)

Sum­mer Art­man GK (Eng­land High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme)

Steph Col­lard–train­ing part­ner and first re­serve)