The Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T fol­lowed up their open­ing knock­out tri­umph in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion of the Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League last week­end with a 51-26 vic­to­ry over the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 11) at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (ERISA), Or­ange Grove in Tacarigua. 

It was a vic­to­ry sig­nalling their in­ten­tion to re­peat as Pre­mier Di­vi­sion cham­pi­ons. The usu­al­ly pro­lif­ic Khal­i­fa Mc Collins (goal at­tack) was again in the lead­ing po­si­tion with goals, sink­ing 22 from the 26 at­tempts she had on the day. 

At the same time, an equal­ly pro­lif­ic Sha­nia Mor­gan added 29 from her 36 tries to con­firm their per­fect start. 

De­spite fail­ing to com­mand one of the top two po­si­tions in the pre­mier di­vi­sion last sea­son, the UTC was not out­gunned in the en­counter, as goal-shoot Gen­e­sis Clif­ford’s 16-from-26 per­for­mance-fight-back kept the UTT on their guard. 

Clif­ford was backed by Lil­i­ah Matthews, who drained a 50 per­cent, nine goals from 18 tries. Still, they failed to shake off the UTT women from lead­ing in every quar­ter 13-7, 29-13, and 39-19 at the end of the third, be­fore they ran away with the vic­to­ry. 

The match was one of two pre­mier di­vi­sion games on the day and fol­lowed a com­mand­ing 56-10 vic­to­ry for MIC over Jabloteh in the oth­er. MIC coach Chinel Bal­con-Den­nie said she ex­pect­ed the re­sult, hav­ing played and trained against their coun­ter­part reg­u­lar­ly. “We were ac­tu­al­ly try­ing to pre­vent them from scor­ing more than 10 goals, so it worked out, but I am pleased with the progress that Jabloteh has made so far,” Bal­com-Den­nie ex­plained. 

MIC has been rid­ing a tidal wave that pro­pelled them to the run­ner-up po­si­tion in on­ly their first for­ay in the pre­mier di­vi­sion last year, and un­der coach Bal­con-Den­nie, their aim is to go all the way to the ti­tle this time. MIC’s tri­umph came cour­tesy of a near-per­fect 36 from 39 dis­play from goal shoot­er Janeisha Cas­simy, cou­pled with a 17-from-23 per­for­mance from Ree­ka Seer­at­tan.

Jabloteh’s best score came from Jes­selle Navar­ro, who had five goals from 10 tries. 

MIC will next clash with the UTT in a re­peat of last year’s fi­nal, which UTT won on Sat­ur­day. 

Mean­while, in the Cham­pi­onship, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, led by Maikea Bram­ble’s 39 from 59, cruised to a com­fort­able 53-30 vic­to­ry over the De­fence Force. The uni­ver­si­ty women, sup­port­ed by a near-per­fect 11 from 14 per­for­mance by Keiko Roy, en­sured that their win was on­ly a mat­ter of for­mal­i­ty. 

Ja­da Hamil­ton’s 23 from 36 was the high­est of the Army scor­ers; how­ev­er, it proved to be in­suf­fi­cient on the day as the win­ners were al­ways a dis­tance ahead in all quar­ters: 13-8, 29-18 at the halfway stage, and 35-22 at the third. 

MIC cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion charges, though, could not fol­low in the foot­steps of their se­niors, as they fin­ished on the los­ing end of a 50-32 beat­ing by UTT. 

The MIC’s 11 from 14 from Tiffany Gon­za­les and 15 from 21 from El­isha Ramkissoon were not enough, as UTT cat­a­pult­ed to the win on the hands of Aquil­la Blugh’s 21 from 25 and Jeni­cia Goodridge’s 29 from 38 at­tempts. 

In an­oth­er cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion match, Po­lice pulled off a hard-fought 28-25 vic­to­ry over PNYC. The Law women were led by sev­en from 12 by Tami­ka John and 12 from 15 by Melis­sa Thomas.