TT Boys lose 28-7 against Colombia

YANNICK QUINTAL

AFTER seeing TT win their first game in either division, on Sunday, they reverted to their losing ways, on the fourth day, of the UANA Youth Water Polo Championships, in Balmain, Couva, yesterday.

The Boys couldn’t carry their momentum from their win, on Sunday, as they lost against Colombia 28-7 The Girls played their best game of the tournament but still came up short against Peru, 10-5.

TTO Girls had their best all-round performance against a similarly struggling Peruvian outfit. However, they struggled to get the ball past the Peruvian goalie. At times the goal looked small for TTO. If they didn’t miss the goal, it rattled the goalposts and the crossbar. They still have to improve their decision making on the offensive end.

However, Victoria Gillette scored a hat-trick for TTO, with Tiffany Green and Aaliyah Aching each scoring one.

For the most part, they had their best defensive performance albeit against Peru who also have been beaten down by the tournament’s stronger teams. They played them very aggressively and the goalkeeper Christina Nimblett, had her best performance of the tournament. They also stopped their streak of allowing more than 25 goals in a game.

The Boys team were down early against Colombia, but unlike their encounter against Peru, they couldn’t keep up with the Colombian scoring. The Colombian keeper kept blocking most of their on-target shots. Turnovers also plagued TTO and Colombia were scoring on the counter-attack. They missed a couple of penalties as well.

After a 14-5 first half, it seemed as if Colombia simply overran them and pulled away. They doubled their scoring output over the half and there was nothing TTO could do about it. Everson Latchman scored a hat-trick, with Kelvin Caesar scoring two, and Yannick Robertson and Christian Chin-Lee providing the other two.

Speaking with Peter Gillette, Amatuer Swimming Association of TT committee member, about the performance of the team, he said, “So two things. First of all, it's not an identical team because that team was an under-16 team, this is a 17 and under team. So there are two or three additional members that have joined the team, but the team is stronger. So far, the coach (Jeff Passwater) has elected to play a lot of the non-starters on the team, the bench as they call it, and I think which reflects the kind of scores and the kind of team play that we have seen. Probably he is looking at resting them up. We’re hoping that against Peru he will play, you know his best foot forward and we’ll see a better result.”