Photo: Sunshine Girls goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Reid makes a brilliant one handed grab for her team during game one of the three game series against Barbados. Fowler-Reid scored 35/52 as Jamaica ran out easy 30 points winners on Friday night.
Jamaica’s senior netball team, the Sunshine Girls, yesterday swept aside Caribbean neighbours Barbados 52-22 in game one of their three match series, inside the National Indoor Centre in Kingston Jamaica, as both teams make their final preparations for the Netball World Championships to be played in Australia next month.
Led by Jhaniele Fowler-Reid (35/52) and Shanice Beckford (12/16) the local team dominated the visitors from start to finish in a totally one sided affair. The young Barbados team was led by goal shooter Shonica Wharton who had 18/24, as they struggled to overcome the swarming Jamaica defence led by captain Nicole Aiken-Pinnock.
Jamaica led 12-5 at the end of the first quarter with most of the scoring being done by Beckford as Fowler-Reid struggled to find her range.
It was more of the same in the second quarter with Jamaica outscoring their opponents 15-4 to take a 27-9 half time lead.
Jamaica’s coach Minteth Reynolds made several changes at the interval, including replacing Beckford who was seen with ice strapped to her left knee.
Fowler-Reid found her range in the second half and along with Anna-Kay Griffiths continued the offensive dominance by the Jamaicans, although the third quarter would prove to be the best for the visitors. Barbados was able to limit Jamaica to just 10 goals while scoring 7 of their own, their best return in a quarter for the match.
The fourth quarter was almost the same as the second, as Jamaica hit fifteen shots to Barbados 6 with Fowler-Reid using her size to good advantage as she found her touch towards the end of the match.
“It was a good all round team performance. The start was a bit shaky but throughout the game we picked up a bit and were able to come out victorious,” Reynolds commented.
“Fowler-Reid returned from Australia a week ago. It was a long flight for her and she has had just one training session with the team. This is her second time with the girls. When she has more time with the girls she will get back in to the groove,” she continued
“It’s the final selection, they all have to go out and execute to earn their spot on the roster,” Reynolds said about the players gaining selection to the World Cup squad.
Barbados coach Anna Shephard admitted that her young team was outgunned but was looking to rebound in game two.
“I think we had a lot of ball possession but we didn’t score. We need to work on our shooting and cut out our turnovers.”
The two shooters are teenagers brought up from our Under-21 and they didn’t do too badly. We will make some adjustments in the midcourt and see if we can put in a better performance in game two.”
Game two will be at 5:00pm at the same venue today.
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