TT boys fight for Worlds spot

YANNICK QUINTAL

TT’s girls water polo team’s tournament is over. Meanwhile, TT boys fought hard for a quarter-final spot as day seven of the UANA Pan American Youth Water Polo Championships came to a close at the National Aquatic Centre in Couva, yesterday.

With a 16-8 loss to Peru, the TT girls team finished the tournament winless in sixth place. The TT boys team wrapped up the preliminary round with a 9-9 tie against the Bahamas and will face Colombia in a fifth place game today. TT will qualify for the 2020 FINA Youth Water Polo World Championships with a win over Colombia. After dominating their Caribbean opponents this year, TT are fielding 16 and under teams at the tournament currently being held as they aim to rebuild.

The girls were in it for the first half of the game and kept the game close after being down 5-2 at the end of the first half. Unfortunately for TT, Peru stepped up their level of play and TT’s offence sputtered. The defence for Peru got tighter and made TT’s already low-scoring offence struggle even more. Peru picked up 11 goals in the second half and TT just couldn’t keep up with them.

Breanne Jordan, Tahirah Beepat and Victoria Gillette all scored two goals and scoring one goal each were Tifannee Green and Abeo Valentine. The eight goals by TT were their highest scoring output of the tournament.

The match between the TT boys and Bahamas was the scrappiest and arguably the most exciting game of the tournament, even more so than TT’s come from behind win against Peru. It was a match up between two equally matched teams fighting for higher positioning in the tournament.

Just like in the Peru game, TT essentially played from behind the entire game. Kelvin Caesar’s five goals, which included TT’s first three, helped set the tone for the rest of the game. The defence bended a little, but it didn’t break as they made stops they had to as well as capitalize on the turnovers they created, including the crucial two on one break that allowed Caesar to score the clutch equalizer with little time on the clock.

Nathan Hinds, Yannick Robertson, Ross Gillette and Marvin Gillard-Bruce scored the other four goals for TT.

Tomorrow is the final day of the competition.

FIXTURES

Girls

Gold medal: USA vs Canada

Bronze medal: Brazil vs Argentina

Boys

Gold medal: USA vs Brazil

Bronze medal: Argentina vs. Canada

Fifth place game: Colombia vs. TT

Seventh place game: Bahamas vs Peru

Other Day Seven Scores

Girls:

Canada defeated Argentina 11-9

USA defeated Brazil 22-4

Boys:

USA defeated Canada 19-4

Brazil defeated Argentina. 9-7

Colombia defeated Peru 20-5