RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

Tami­ah Her­nan­dez and Ke­la­iah Stew­art will fea­ture in this week­end's Un­der-16 East­er In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Port-of-Spain.

The three-day com­pe­ti­tion starts to­day and will see lo­cal youth teams par­tic­i­pat­ing along with a team from Eng­land, the Wood­house Grove School. The day's event starts at 9 am with an open­ing cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA).

Her­nan­dez, a stu­dent of South East Port-of-Spain and Stew­art of Bish­ops High, To­ba­go are part of the T&T de­vel­op­ment team that will com­pete in the eight-team tour­na­ment.

Some of the net­ballers that will be on show this week­end make up the na­tion­al ju­nior team that will com­pete at the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s (CNA) Jean Pierre Un­der-16 Net­ball Tour­na­ment set from April 6-12 in St Lu­cia.

The ju­nior "Ca­lyp­so Girls" are coached by Vel­ma Hazel­wood and she is be­ing as­sist­ed by for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain Lystra Solomon-Sim­mons. Serv­ing as train­er is So­journ­er "Susie" Hyles-Lewis with Coreen David, the man­ag­er.

An­oth­er stand-out play­er on court for the next three days will be Kayshan­na Dun­can of Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary, who made her de­but in the 2016 na­tion­al ju­nior team. Dun­can was named among the fi­nal squad last year for the tour­na­ment, which was to be held in here in T&T but was can­celled due to fi­nan­cial con­straints to a num­ber of coun­tries that was par­tic­i­pat­ing.

The Tour­na­ment serves as a fund-rais­er so at­ten­dees are be­ing asked to do­nate $5 to go to­wards the na­tion­al ju­nior team which de­parts on April 5, re­turn­ing April 13.

The oth­er lo­cal teams com­pet­ing in the in­vi­ta­tion­al are Tu­na­puna Tigers, Po­lice Youth Club (PYC), Hori­zon, CHIPS and a Pres­i­dent's team.