Fire Starters cap­tured the Mixed Open ti­tle at the in­au­gur­al Ma­yaro Net­fest Net­ball Week­end tour­na­ment at the Ma­yaro Sports Fa­cil­i­ty on Sun­day (De­cem­ber 10).

In a close­ly con­test­ed en­counter, Fire Starters de­feat­ed Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 6-4. Both teams were strong on de­fence as the shoot­ers were lim­it­ed to just four goals at the com­ple­tion of the first half which end­ed at 3-1.

The tense ex­changes con­tin­ued in the sec­ond pe­ri­od. How­ev­er, Shaquille Lewis was able to get past the Gate­way X de­fend­ers to give his team a two-goal vic­to­ry.

Fire Starters ad­vanced to the fi­nal af­ter a 7-4 tri­umph over Spar­toms in the first semi­fi­nal.

Spar­toms were go­ing for a clean sweep of ti­tles af­ter se­cur­ing the top spot in the Women's Open com­pe­ti­tion, ear­li­er. They al­so se­cured the Un­der-16 and U-20 crowns on the first day, Sat­ur­day.

Gate­way play­ers beat their team-mates Gate­way Y in the sec­ond semis pre­vail­ing 13-8. Team X was up 7-0 at the half be­fore Team Y ral­lied back with sev­en unan­swered goals to tie the score at 7-7. How­ev­er, Team X pressed to win the match by five goals.

Spar­toms had to set­tle for third place af­ter get­ting the bet­ter of Gate­way Y, 10-5.

Fire Starters and Gate­way were drawn in Group A in the round-robin play ear­li­er in the day and both teams played to an 8-8 draw in the fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary round match be­fore the semi­fi­nals. The pair end­ed with two wins and a draw. Fire Starters beat Ball Stars (16-1) and Po­lice (11-7) while Gate­way X got the up­per hand of Po­lice (13-2) and Ball Stars (13-1). Po­lice record­ed one win af­ter de­feat­ing Ball Stars (17-1).

Gate­way Y shone in Group B reign­ing over To­co Po­lice Youth Club (12-7), Spar­toms (9-6) and Guay­may Net­terz (11-10). Spar­toms took sec­ond spot get­ting by Guay­may Net­terz (10-2) and To­co Po­lice Youth Club (8-2). Net­ters de­feat­ed To­co PYC, 9-7.

Lewis was named the Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) fol­low­ing his younger sis­ter Shi­an, who copped the MVP prizes in the U-16 and U-20 cat­e­gories, in the week­end tour­na­ment, or­gan­ised by the Nar­i­va-Ma­yaro Net­ball De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee (NM­NDC) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the All Ma­yaro Sports Foun­da­tion (AMSF) and spon­sored by All Ma­yaro Sports Foun­da­tion, Re­pub­lic Bank-Ma­yaro Branch, Blue Wa­ters, and Zor Ser­vices.

Fire Starters were re­ward­ed with $2,500 for their first-place fin­ish while Gate­way X took the $1,500 run­ner-up prize. Spar­toms added the third-place cheque of $1,000 to their week­end tal­ly.

The cham­pi­on team mem­bers are Lewis, Jameela Mc Carthy, Jene­cia Goodridge, Si­mone Mor­gan, Ja­son Jat­tan, Onel­la Jack-Hill, Steve Mc­Sween and Can­dice Guerero-Mo­hammed.

Sun­day's Mixed Open re­sults

Pre­lim­i­nary round

Group A

Fire Starters 16 vs Ball Stars 1

Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 13 vs Po­lice 12

Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 14 vs Ball Stars 1

Fire Starters 11 vs Po­lice 7

Po­lice 17 vs Ball Stars 1

Fire Starters 8 vs Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 8

Group B

Spar­toms 10 vs Guay­may Net­ters 3

Gate­way Ath­let­ics Y 12 vs To­co PYC 7

Guay­may Net­terz 9 vs To­co PYC 7

Gate­way Ath­let­ics Y 9 vs Spar­toms 6

Spar­toms 8 vs To­co PYC 2

Gate­way Atheltics Y 11 vs Guay­may Net­terz 10

Mixed Open

Semi­fi­nals

Fire Starters 7 vs Sportoms 4

Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 13 vs Gate­way Ath­let­ics Y 8

Sec­ond half

Third play-off

Spar­toms 10 vs Gate­way Ath­let­ics Y 5

Fi­nal

Fire Starters 6 vs Gate­way Ath­let­ics X 4