Fan-favourite, T&T’s Shaquan­da Greene-Noel of Celtic Drag­ons was cel­e­brat­ed as one of the top per­form­ers for the sea­son as she was named the “Green Army Play­er of the Sea­son” at the end-of-sea­son awards on Fri­day.

“I feel ebul­lient but very hum­ble,” said Greene-Noel, yes­ter­day. “Def­i­nite­ly did not en­ter the sea­son ex­pect­ing the ac­co­lades and fan base I got, but God has blessed me tremen­dous­ly and al­lowed me to per­form well.”

This, her de­but sea­son with the Drag­ons in the Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per­league (VNSL) in Eng­land, she along with shoot­er Lefebre Rade­man, de­fend­er Annabel Rod­dy and shoot­er Philli­pa Yarran­ton picked up the top awards.

Rade­man was the Play­ers (vot­ed by the ath­letes in the Celtic Drag­ons group) and Coach­es’ (vot­ed by the Drag­ons coach­es) “Play­er of the Sea­son” and was se­lect­ed as one of three “Drag­on of the Sea­son” along with Rod­dy and Yarran­ton. This award was vot­ed by the Drag­ons VNSL staff and oth­er ath­letes and is pre­sent­ed to play­ers who lived out the club’s val­ues con­sis­tent­ly across the sea­son.

In their fi­nal match last Sat­ur­day, the lone Wales-based team suf­fered a nar­row 58-54 de­feat away to Sur­rey Storm and Greene-Noel dom­i­nat­ed on de­fense as she did through­out the sea­son de­spite her team fin­ish­ing in 10th spot in the 11-team com­pe­ti­tion with nine points from three wins.

Al­though not the out­come she and her Celtic teams were hop­ing for, the T&T de­fend­er emerged with three “Play­er of the Match” awards dur­ing the sea­son which ends to­day with the fi­nal be­tween reg­u­lar-sea­son leader Man­ches­ter Thun­der, who beat Team Bath (64-54) in the semi­fi­nal yes­ter­day, and Lough­bor­ough Light­ning, who topped Lon­don Pulse (56-44) in the oth­er semi­fi­nal.

Greene-Noel al­so fin­ished among the top five play­ers in three cat­e­gories. She placed third in in­ter­cepts with 48 be­hind Team Bath’s Lay­la Gus­coth with 62 and Tow­era Vinkhum­bo (Strath­clyde Sirens) with 60. She was fifth in turnovers, forc­ing the op­pos­ing teams to turn over the ball 97 times. Ahead of her re­spec­tive­ly in that group­ing, were Vinkhum­bo (106), Gus­coth (100), Sev­ern Stars’ Lucy Herd­man (98), and Man­ches­ter Thun­der’s Ker­ry Al­mond (97). In the de­flec­tions cat­e­go­ry, she was fifth with 77 be­hind Lon­don Pulse’s Fun­mi Fado­ju (110), Al­mond (95), Storm’s Leah Mid­dle­ton (82) and Gus­coth (78).

“It was a phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly tax­ing sea­son but hard work and my fam­i­ly’s prayers got me through. I’m re­al­ly grate­ful but very en­thu­si­as­tic about what I can of­fer to the T&T se­nior team for the up­com­ing tour­na­ments,” said Greene-Noel, who will join the “Ca­lyp­so Girls” prepa­ra­tions for the Birm­ing­ham Com­mon­wealth Games in Eng­land in Ju­ly/Au­gust, af­ter much-need­ed rest and fam­i­ly time.