T&T net­ballers record­ed their first vic­to­ry at the Net­ball World Youth Cup (NWYC) in Gibral­tar on Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 23) when they de­feat­ed Bar­ba­dos 58-33 in a Pool D clash, re­bound­ing from three straight loss­es.

The na­tion­al play­ers scored first and were up 5-2 be­fore the Ba­jans re­spond­ed to tie the score at 7-7. The two teams were en­gaged in a see-saw bat­tle at 8-8, 9-9, 10-10 and end­ed the quar­ter at 11-11.

In the sec­ond pe­ri­od, the Caribbean ri­vals matched each oth­er with reg­u­lar turnovers and missed shots. How­ev­er, T&T coach Kali­fa Mc Collins was able to in­spire her charges to re­group and build a lead to go in­to the half, six (25-19) points ahead.

The young "Ca­lyp­so Girls" con­tin­ued the mo­men­tum and surged ahead to a ten-point lead, 34-24. Cap­tain Maikea Bram­ble built on the lead, which jumped up to 12 goals (40-28) to end the third pe­ri­od at 41-30.

In the fi­nal quar­ter, the T&T play­ers pushed to en­sure their first vic­to­ry in Gibral­tar with sol­id de­fend­ing to re­strict Bar­ba­dos to three goals. Goal-shoot­er Bram­ble un­leashed more goals up front with longer shots as the lo­cal play­ers won by 25 goals.

Bram­ble was on fire with the ball, con­vert­ing all 55 of her at­tempts. Goal-at­tack Keiko Roy as­sist­ed with the oth­er three goals for as many tries.

Cap­tain Bram­ble was hap­py about the tri­umph.

"It means a lot. I know the girls were dis­ap­point­ed but com­ing and win­ning this match means re­al­ly a lot to us. Con­grat­u­la­tions (to the girls). All the hard work paid off, and let's go and cel­e­brate," she said in her post-match in­ter­view. And to Bar­ba­dos, she en­cour­aged: "Keep your head up."

Coach Mc Collin, a for­mer na­tion­al U-21 cap­tain, was al­so pleased with the win.

"I am feel­ing pret­ty good. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the girls but we have a lot of work to do. (Play­ing at this lev­el) It is very dif­fi­cult. Some of their peers are al­ready com­pet­ing at a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. They play at the se­nior lev­el as well. It is a wake-up call," said Mc Collin.

On Sat­ur­day, T&T was beat­en by Fi­ji (53-40), went un­der to Malawi (65-29) on Sun­day and suf­fered a huge 105-15 loss to South Africa.

De­spite the de­feats, the for­mer pro­fes­sion­al play­ers told Guardian Me­dia Sports she is en­cour­aged by per­for­mances.

"We have seen that the young play­ers like Sophia Her­nan­dez and Kalvinelle Roberts are hav­ing a good tour­na­ment thus far, (Maikea) Bram­ble as well," said Mc Collin.

In oth­er re­sults, de­fend­ing cham­pi­on New Zealand spanked Malaysia 80-20 while three-time win­ners Aus­tralia got past fel­low Ocea­nia team Samoa, 65-38. Ja­maica topped Wales 61-43 while Eng­land whipped Ton­ga 72-25. South Africa blazed Malawi 65-33, with Sin­ga­pore over­com­ing North­ern Ire­land 50-32.

Ac­tion con­tin­ues to­day with the fi­nal round of Pool play. T&T will not be in ac­tion. With their lone win, the na­tion­al net­ballers are out of con­tention for a quar­ter­fi­nal place. How­ev­er, they await the fi­nal stand­ings af­ter to­day's re­main­ing match­es to know which of the plac­ings they will con­tend for in the 18-team com­pe­ti­tion, re­duced from 20 af­ter Zam­bia and Sri Lan­ka with­drew.

Wednes­day's match­es - Day Five

4 am - Scot­land vs Sin­ga­pore/Samoa vs North­ern Ire­land

6 am - Ton­ga vs Sri Lan­ka/Ja­maica vs Eng­land

11 am - New Zealand vs Gibral­tar/Malaysia vs Zam­bia

1 pm - Fi­ji vs South Africa/Malawi vs Bar­ba­dos

Tues­day's re­sults - Day Four

T&T 58 vs Bar­ba­dos 33

South Africa 64 vs Malawi 36

Aus­tralia 65 vs Samoa 36

Sin­ga­pore 50 vs North­ern Ire­land 32

Ja­maica 61 vs Wales 43

Eng­land 77 vs Ton­ga 25

New Zealand 80 vs Malaysia 20

Cook Is­lands vs Zam­bia (for­feit)