Saint Lucia’s Piton Sparks repeated as third-place finishers at the fifth Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) International Netball Series. The team closed out its campaign with wins over Grenada and the Cayman Islands, and a loss to hosts Grenada, who handed defending champions St Vincent & the Grenadines their first defeat on Sunday night.
The narrow win for Grenada, 64-63, boosted them to second place, ahead of Saint Lucia. Vincy Jewels retained the Gloria Ballantyne Trophy as the top team among Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States member countries.
SVG had previously beaten Saint Lucia. Each of the top three teams lost just once amongst their OECS peers, and the standings came down to goal difference.
The Sparks closed out their campaign at the Tanteen Netball Facility in St George’s with a victory over guest team the Cayman Islands, who had been having an impressive run in the competition up to that point. On Sunday morning, they lost to regional powerhouses Barbados, 62-39.
But their triumph over OECS and Windward Islands neighbours Grenada would have been extremely satisfying to the relatively young team. They won 52-48 over their higher-ranked opponents, leading 12-10 from the first quarter.
At halftime, they had extended their advantage to 26-19. From a deficit of 42-31 after three periods, the home team made a furious push to win the fourth quarter 17-10, but it was too little, too late.
Saint Lucian centre court player Naija Ferdinand was exemplary, though she was hard on herself afterwards. From a team perspective, however, the teenager declared herself well pleased with the eventual results.
“It feels amazing because it was a hard-fought, well-fought match,” she stated. “We just feel really good. We feel really proud of ourselves… For the first two quarters, the plan was to play hard, come for the centre passes, make sure we score our goals, and get the ball into the shooting circle.
“For the last two quarters, it was kind of a bit harder because we were tired, but ‘just keep the lead’. We tried to keep the lead as much as possible because we had a very good lead.
“I don’t think I played to my best, but there’s always room for improvement. But the whole team was just backing me up, telling me what to do since I’m a little younger, but I think we did really good. I think I did okay.”
Due to rain interruptions, some games were crammed into relatively small windows. Grenada’s rally came in the last five minutes of the game, by which time the Saint Lucians were clearly flagging. Ferdinand admitted that there were some tense moments.
“We were very nervous, I was very nervous,” she conceded. “And we were very tired. And we had to remind ourselves that that’s our game and to push ourselves … and I’m very happy we pulled through.
“It’s a very significant game, because we showed that we can win if we put our best foot forward. And if we really, just, listen to our coaches, execute what we are told, we can win. For the last couple months, we’ve been training very hard. So I think our training has really shown us what we can do.”
