IF YOU ever thought that Guyana’s outing in the Americas Federation of Netball Association Championships (AFNA) would bring good news for the country, those who follow the sports will have to prepare themselves for serious disappointments as the national senior women team are definitely not ready for this level of competition. It is like a boxer full of enthusiasm and bubbling over with excitement to prove that he has what it takes to win honours and share in glory, only to be stopped in his tracks and suffer considerable damage with humiliating defeat after defeat.
Similarly, the Guyana women’s netball team, not even having established any credentials at the regional level within the last two decades or more are faced with the enormous task of preventing complete annihilation against established regional netball powerhouse teams in their debut outing for the AFNA Championships.
They have been totally outclassed and outplayed in every single department of the game by defending champions Trinidad and Tobago, 2010 fourth-placed team St Lucia and received a sound whipping from perennial champions Jamaica who crushed them by the biggest margin of the tournament.
Jamaica emerged triumphant with a 124-8 margin, victory by 116 points. Imagine that’s the final score in four quarters of 15 minutes each which resulted in agony for the Guyanese players as the Jamaicans dominated throughout with scores of 30-4, 30-2, 34-1 and 30-1 for each respective quarter.
Guyana lost to Trinidad and Tobago by 104-10 and followed with another embarrassing 85-17 lost to St Lucia.
No time for breather or for revival from the previous mental, physical, emotional scars sustained in those overwhelming situations. The Jamaicans were far superior in terms of height advantage, physical fitness, agility, skills, speed and control, in addition to their strategic ball movement that was too much for the Guyanese team that never gave up but were hopelessly outclassed.
Jamaica’s goal shooter Shauntel Slater played three sessions and topped the scoring charts with 72 points from 75 attempts while her replacement, the 6’3”-tall Jhaneile Fowler; netted 30 out of 31 attempts. Goal attack Anna Kay Griffith scored six out of six shots while Vanessa Walker converted 16 out of 19 attempts.
Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago as well as Barbados remained the two other unbeaten teams in the championships.
T&T trounced Bermuda by a 95-18 margin while Barbados romped home comfortably to a 60-29 victory over Canada.
St Lucia registered an important 47-36 victory over the United States of America (USA) in an encounter which will decide the middle-order positions of the nine-team tournament.
In absence of Jamaica from the 2010 Championships, the USA team finished ahead of St Lucia for third position but with their defeat, the St Lucians will definitely fancy their chances of maintaining their ranking in the AFNA region.
T&T’s six-footer Anastacia Wilson played the first three quarters as goal shooter and she netted 59 points from 64 attempts while goal attack Jenelle Richardson in those three quarters had converted 13 from 15 but was perfect in the final quarter as goal shooter with 19 from 19 attempts to finish with an overall aggregate of 32 from 34. Rhonda John Davis substituted as goal attack for last quarter and netted four out of four attempts.
Goal shooter Daniele Raynor scored 12 points from 14 attempts Melissa Wainwright had three from three and Kimale Evans three from three for Bermuda.
For Barbados, goal shooter Laurel Brown scored 39 out of 42 attempts while goal attack registered 21 out of 22 shots.
For the Canadians, SherryAnn Dunn converted 24 from 34 while Sabrina Versteeg scored five from 12 shots.