RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

Chants of "Onel­la! Onel­la!" en­gulfed the court at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na from spec­ta­tors as Mas­ter of Cer­e­mo­ny - Pamela Cum­ber­batch held them in sus­pense as to who among the top 12 net­ballers would be named the "Most Valu­able Play­er" of the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League so when Onel­la Jack-Hill was an­nounced as the win­ner, there were cheers of sat­is­fac­tion from the crowd.

"I felt ho­n­oured and hum­ble," said Jack-Hill of the Fire Ser­vice team on the sup­port from the au­di­ence which in­clud­ed play­ers from the var­i­ous teams that com­pet­ed in the 28th edi­tion of the league.

She was pre­sent­ed the award by T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) pres­i­dent Dr Pa­tri­cia Butch­er on Sat­ur­day evening af­ter the fire­women com­pet­ed in the tra­di­tion­al colours com­pe­ti­tion with the yel­low team be­fore the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny. Jack-Hill filled the goal-at­tack po­si­tion and her team reached the fi­nal but fell to the blue team, 8-6.

"I am elat­ed of course," she said on win­ning the award for the sec­ond time. The se­nior na­tion­al de­fend­er first copped the prize in 2014.

Jack-Hill, who al­so picked up the prize for top de­fend­er, was MVP of her team and was named on the se­nior All Stars team, was key in help­ing Fire make a clean sweep of all ma­jor ti­tles avail­able in the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion, claim­ing the league, Steve Sar­jeant Chal­lenge and the di­vi­sion­al knock-out.

"It was def­i­nite­ly a team ef­fort. Every­one con­tributed in some way even the play­ers who were on the bench," said Jack-Hill, prais­ing each of her team-mates. "We played hard. And we sup­port­ed each oth­er through­out the en­tire tour­na­ment which I found was com­mend­able."

In oth­er awards hand­ed out, the best cen­tre-court prize went to Sh­ernece Seemu­n­gal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) and Joelisa Coop­er of Po­lice Youth Club (PYC) had the best shoot­ing av­er­age 80.21 per cent to take top ho­n­ours. Coop­er's team came away with the tro­phy for best shoot­ing av­er­age (70.26) as well.

In the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, TSTT's Chan­tael Per­ry had the best shoot­ing av­er­age of 81.39 per­cent fol­lowed by Dionne James of the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) with 74.23 and Bermudez's Make­da De­Fre­itas (73.23), who helped her team cop the best shoot­ing team award (72.42).

In the Al­ter­na­tive cat­e­go­ry, Fire had the best av­er­age of 58.49 with its shoot­er Chelsea Dele­cia plac­ing third with a per­cent­age of 62.17 in the in­di­vid­ual cat­e­go­ry be­hind win­ner Shuntelle Mor­ris of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) with 64.86 and sec­ond-placed Car­la Vic­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean (USC) with 63.39.