T&T suf­fered its sec­ond de­feat at the Net­ball World Un­der-21 Cup, cur­rent­ly un­der­way in Gibral­tar.

The na­tion­al net­ballers fell to Malawi 65-29 in their Pool D clash at the Eu­ropa Sports Com­plex Sun­day. The lo­cal team was aim­ing to re­bound af­ter go­ing down to Fi­ji 40-53 in their open­ing en­counter on Sat­ur­day.

T&T strug­gled with the su­pe­ri­or speed and ball pass­ing of the Malaw­ians. The young “Ca­lyp­so Girls” were trail­ing 7-1 be­fore get­ting a sec­ond and the third (2-7, 3-8 ) but the African side re­spond­ed with six con­sec­u­tive goals to go up 14-3. Cap­tain Maikea Bram­ble, the goal-shoot­er, and her team­mates were not as flow­ing with their pass­es and were be­hind 22-8 at the end of the first quar­ter.

In the sec­ond 15-minute pe­ri­od, the na­tion­al squad fought back to al­most match their op­po­nents 9-10 on goals but trailed 17-32 at half­time.

Coach Kali­fa Mc Collins made some strate­gic changes in the team’s at­tack­ing, elim­i­nat­ing the long pass­es and for short­er ones as wing-at­tack Kayleea Songui were get­ting more balls to Bram­ble. De­spite the ad­just­ments, Malawi con­tin­ued to score and built a 20-goal lead to 41-21 and ex­tend­ed the ad­van­tage to 50-25 at the end of the third quar­ter.

T&T’s hopes of a third straight win over Malawi at the Youth Cup were dim as the lo­cal con­tin­gent dropped fur­ther be­hind by 30 goals (59-29), and were even­tu­al­ly de­feat­ed by 36 goals. The red, white and black play­ers won in 2013 (69-32) and 2005 (48-26) against the Malawi team.

Bram­ble net­ted 24 goals from 27 at­tempts while goal-at­tack Keiko Roy was five from six. Ja­da Hamil­ton re­placed Roy as goal-at­tack and she missed her lone try.

The Ky­o­mi Pas­call-Mot­t­ley man­aged team plays South Africa to­day (4 am TT time) in a must-win match to re­main in con­tention of qual­i­fy­ing for the quar­ter­fi­nals. The South Africans whipped Bar­ba­dos 102-27 on Sat­ur­day.

In oth­er re­sults yes­ter­day, Ja­maica over­came Ton­ga 66-43 while Malaysia hand­ed hosts Gibral­tar a sec­ond straight de­feat, 59-29. De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons New Zealand whipped Ocea­nia neigh­bours Cook Is­lands, 74-47. For­mer win­ner Aus­tralia got a sec­ond win with a 92-15 vic­to­ry over Sin­ga­pore. Scot­land over­came ri­vals North­ern Ire­land, 64-21.

The top two teams in each pool will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nal round, with the semi­fi­nals set for Sep­tem­ber 26 and the fi­nals on Sep­tem­ber 28.

T&T Squad

Team: Maikea Bram­ble (cap­tain)-GS, Rick­ibah Isaac (vice cap­tain)-C, Nichola Gill-GD, Kalvinelle Roberts-GK, Keiko Roy-GA, Neke­sha Gomes-GD/GK, Ja­da Hamil­ton-GA, Jeni­cia Goodridge C, Sophia Her­nan­dez-WD, Kayleea Songui-WA/C, Aza­lia Olivierre-WA

Non-start­ing play­ers-Ker­lene John­son-WD, Makay­la Grant (re­serve)-GA.

Teams

Pool A-New Zealand, Gibral­tar, Malaysia, Cook Is­lands, Zam­bia

Pool B-Aus­tralia, Samoa, Scot­land, Sin­ga­pore, North­ern Ire­land

Pool C-Eng­land, Ja­maica, Ton­ga, Wales, Sri Lan­ka

Pool D-Fi­ji, South Africa, Malawi, Bar­ba­dos, T&T

Yes­ter­day's re­sults

Day Two (Sep 21)

Malawi 65 vs T&T 29

Fi­ji 66 vs Bar­ba­dos 34

Ja­maica 66 vs Ton­ga 43

Wales vs Sri Lan­ka (for­feit)

Malaysia 59 vs Gibral­tar 28

New Zealand 74 vs Cook Is­lands

Scot­land 64 vs North­ern Ire­land 21

Aus­tralia 90 vs Sin­ga­pore 25

Match­es

Mon­day - Day Three

4 am - Fi­ji vs Malawi/T&T vs South Africa

6 am - Sin­Ga­pore vs Samoa/Aus­tralia vs Scot­land

11 am - Gibral­tar vs Zam­bia/Cook Is­lands/Malaysia

1 pm - Eng­land vs Wales/Sri Lan­ka vs Ja­maica

Tues­day - Day Four

4 am - Aus­tralia vs Samoa/Sin­ga­pore vs North­ern Ire­land

6 am - Ja­maica vs Wales/Eng­land vs Ton­ga

11 am - T&T vs Bar­ba­dos/South Africa vs Malawi

1 pm - New Zealand vs Malaysia/Cook Is­lands/Zim­bab­we