Barbados made light work of the Republic of Ireland, defeating them 84-5 in their first match of the World Youth Netball Championships yesterday at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland.
In the match which was streamed live, coach Sandra Bruce-Small started with the combination of shooters Shonica Wharton and captain Rieah Holder; wing attack Tyneisha Rowe; Cherise Seale at centre and Markayla Yearwood on the wing. Jeneice Clarke and Shanice Rock were the two defenders.
It was like having your cake and eating it too. Barbados rushed to an 8-0 lead with Wharton doing most of the shooting at that time.
It was a free-flowing game with passes easily moving up and down the court.
Seale and Rowe were able to find Holder who easily put the passes in to Wharton. The youngest member of team Barbados was cool in the spotlight, sinking all eight shots both near and mid-range before her first miss.
Holder got into the act later in the quarter and scored 15 goals from her 19 attempts.
Ireland seemed on the verge of embarrassment. The stifling Barbados defence did not allow them a single attempt until eight minutes had passed and it was a rebound that Rock easily snared.
With the ball being trapped from the centre pass, Ireland’s attack could not build and they often turned it over. They finally scored their first goal after 11 minutes to very loud cheers from spectators.
With the 21-1 first quarter lead, it was smooth sailing for the Bajan lasses.
The attack stuttered for a bit in the second half, but Barbados again outscored Ireland 19-1 to take a 40-2 lead into the half-time break.
Wharton sank 25 shots from 29 attempts in the two quarters.
Bruce-Small cleared her bench over the rest of the game.
With Clarke moving to wing attack, the new shooting combination of Vanessa Reid-Cox and Shannon Hackett also made a meal of the Irish defence. Marissa Burgess came in at goal attack and Tonisha Rock-Yaw took over
the centre bib. Rock moved to goal defence and Shanice Wharton, Shonica’s older sister, took her place at goalkeeper.
It took a bit for this combination to settle and in that time, the Irish started to string a few passes together. They got off more attempts in the third quarter than they did for the whole first half and scored two goals, trailing 59-4.
But when this Barbados unit settled, they were even more effective than the starters, pouring in 25 goals in the final quarter. Reid-Cox scored 23 from 29 and Hackett 21 from 24.
Clarke marshalled the defence and seemed to be everywhere at once, picking and tipping to force turnovers.
“It was great,” Holder said after the game. “It wasn’t a competitive game, but seeing that we don’t know the capabilities of the other teams we are just taking each game at a time.”
Bruce-Small said the team performed well. She was pleased they were able to execute their attacking and defensive strategies and that everyone got court time.
“In the next game we are going to be using some different combinations and some of the things we didn’t do well in this game, I expect us to do better in the next game,” she said.
Barbados will be up against Singapore at 10 a.m. today.
In other matches, Trinidad and Tobago had to fight hard for their 47-31 victory over newcomers Bermuda, but the top four teams all eased to 2-0 records.
New Zealand beat Malta 94-6, England beat Singapore 82-27, Jamaica defeated Scotland 65-30 and Australia rolled over Namibia 91-17.
There was also a 64-32 victory for South Africa over Fiji and Wales beat Samoa 31-65. (SAT)