T&T's Un­der-21 net­ballers fin­ished in 15th spot at the Net­ball World Youth Cup (NWYC) in Gibral­tar Sat­ur­day. The na­tion­al play­ers reg­is­tered a 45-34 vic­to­ry over hosts Gibral­tar to se­cure their sec­ond tri­umph in the tour­na­ment, which comes to an end to­day.

The lo­cal net­ball team trailed in the open­ing por­tion of the first quar­ter, 3-1, be­fore re­spond­ing to even the score at 3-3. The two squads ex­changed goals to re­main tied at 4-4 to 9-9 be­fore the red, white and black con­tin­gent pulled away to build a three-goal ad­van­tage (12-9) at the end of the quar­ter.

On the re­sump­tion, boost­ed by the home fans, Gibral­tar fought back, draw­ing lev­el at 12-12 and 13-13. How­ev­er, T&T cap­tain and goal-shoot­er Maikea Bram­ble and goal-at­tack Ja­da Hamil­ton were con­vert­ing their shots as the young "Ca­lyp­so Girls" pulled away to lead by four points at half­time (22-18).

Bram­ble and Hamil­ton were scor­ing up front while their team­mates kept their op­po­nents in check in de­fence, which re­sult­ed in T&T open­ing up an 11-goal gap at the com­ple­tion of the third quar­ter.

T&T de­fend­ers pres­sured the Gibral­tar­i­an play­ers and won sev­er­al turnovers, en­sur­ing that the lead did not close and se­cured the 11-goal tri­umph for the team.

Bram­ble was on point in the shoot­ing cir­cle once again with 36 goals from 38 at­tempts. Hamil­ton had her best match of the tour­na­ment with eight out of nine. Kieko Roy came in the fi­nal quar­ter for Hamil­ton and net­ted her lone try.

The vic­to­ry was the sec­ond for T&T in Gibral­tar. The first win was against Bar­ba­dos (58-33) on Sep­tem­ber 23 in the pool stages.

The na­tion­al play­ers were beat­en by Fi­ji (53-40), Malawi (65-29) and South Africa (105-15) in their oth­er Pool D en­coun­ters and then to Malaysia (67-34) and Sin­ga­pore (67-58) in the play­off stage.

Bar­ba­dos fin­ished in 17th place af­ter beat­ing North­ern Ire­land 49-29. Ton­ga end­ed in 13th spot with a 50-47 tri­umph over Sin­ga­pore. Fi­ji copped the 11th po­si­tion af­ter get­ting by Malaysia, 56-48, while Samoa se­cured ninth place af­ter a 67-53 win over Wales.

On Sun­day, de­fend­ing cham­pi­on New Zealand will square off against ri­val Aus­tralia for the ti­tle. Both are go­ing for a fifth tro­phy. South Africa and Eng­land will bat­tle for third, while Ja­maica and Scot­land will con­tend for fifth place.

Sat­ur­day's re­sults - Day 8

15th-16th place

T&T 45 vs Gibral­tar 34

17th-18th place

Bar­ba­dos 49 vs North­ern Ire­land 29

13th-14th place

Ton­ga 50 vs Sin­ga­pore 47

11th-12th place

Fi­ji 56 vs Malaysia 48

9th-10th place

Samoa 67 vs Wales 53

Sun­day's match­es - Day 9

7th-8th place

Malawi vs Cook Is­lands

5th-6th place

Ja­maica vs Scot­land

3rd-4th place

South Africa vs Eng­land

1st-2nd

New Zealand vs Aus­tralia