THE Barbados Secondary Schools Under-19 netball champions Christ Church Foundation and runners-up Springer Memorial are in line for regional action come 2018.
In a bid to fill the dearth of netball competition in the region, the Caribbean Netball Association has invited countries to take part in a schools’ champions tournament in Jamaica from July 15 to 17.
So far, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and St Lucia have positively responded to the invitation.
The developmental Under-16 tournament was scuttled last year after Trinidad and Tobago opted out as host and no other country had filled the breach.
In April 2018, Barbados seniors will be going to the Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast, while the AFNA World Cup qualifiers are slated to be held here in the last week of August.
Barbados Netball Association president Nisha Craigwell welcomed the news of the tournament in Jamaica as a positive step to assist the development of the region’s next generation of netballers.
“We have always contended that too little netball is played in the region and this new competition will be a tremendous boost for our young players. With Foundation and Springer qualifying to participate, Barbados’ netball will benefit significantly as those schools boast a large percentage of our junior national players,” Craigwell said.
“We are still looking at the full details of the regulations as we need to find out if teams will be permitted to include guest players. Former Under-16 captain Amanda Knight of Queen’s College and Xhane Greenidge of The St Michael School had represented Barbados at the Under-21 World Cup in Africa and it would be good to be able to insert that duo into one of our teams, if the rules permit.”
The president contended that an Under-19 event would involve national senior contenders and would provide a good gauge as to who would be Barbados’ next netball stars as well as to hint at their threats in the region. (KB)
