LAUDERHILL – Another sunny Saturday greeted netballers as they arrived at the Lauderhill Sports Park for a three-game weekend of netball matches.
Winners Sports Club was pitted against a much younger, more skilful Goldstars team, who more than doubled their score with a 27 to 11 victory, in a relatively low-scoring game, as the Caribbean National Weekly Netball League games just got past the mid-season.
The game to watch, however, was the third and final game for the evening between Sparkles and Tropical Nets. Nets started the game with the minimum allowable 5 players, but that did not stop them from pulling out to a 15 to 10 lead by the end of the first quarter.
A valiant effort by Sparkles All-Star Goal Defence, Tiffany Martin, was not enough to stop All-Star MVP, Karren Clarke, at Goal Attack for Nets as she seemed to enjoy a leisurely romp through the first quarter with her daughter Trudy Sterling at Center, complementing her every move.
Nets continued to pound the ball in to Clarke and Goal Shooter, Annette Payne, to hold off Sparkles with a 12 to 5 run in the second quarter, on day when Sparkles must have felt that they had their best chance of upsetting the 2005 2nd place finishing Nets.
Sparkles came out with more fire-power in the second half, tying a tiring Nets team with 8 points a piece. Sparkles became a bit disheveled towards the end of the third quarter, not being able to capitalize on a flurry of turnovers by Nets in the center court.
With the colourful, flashy and energetic play by Tamara Witter, hope loomed once more for Sparkles, But that hope was soon to be dashed when Witter was stranded by Karlene Manning who had to exit the game for the second time, nursing an old finger injury, and Nets countered with a last quarter injection of energy by Althea Dacosta who entered the game with fresh legs. Nets continued their dominance in the fourth quarter, outscoring their opponent 13 to 6 on the way to a 48 to 29 victory. Nets have not lost any games to date.
In other netball news, the available members of the USA Netball Squad will be playing a practice match against the Navigators netball team from New York, as final preparation before departing for Barbados to compete in the Qualifiers for the World Netball Championships slated for Fiji in 2007. The match will be at the Sadkin Center in Lauderhill on Sunday August 6, at 2 pm.
