Women’s netball in the Cayman Islands starts its quest for international kudos in Calgary.
Cayman’s national women’s team is playing in the opener against home nation Canada in the 2014 Americas Federation of Netball Associations Championship. The contest takes place at SAIT Polytechnic institute from 5 p.m. Calgary time (6 p.m. Cayman time) on Aug. 19.
Cayman will be in action over the next seven days against some of the region’s best squads. The local girls face Grenada on Aug. 20, Trinidad and Tobago on Aug. 21, Barbados on Aug. 22, the United States on Aug. 23 and Argentina on Aug. 24.
The tournament serves as a qualifier for the 2015 World Netball Championships in Australia, with the top teams earning automatic berths. Cayman is looking to catch up with its Caribbean neighbors. Jamaica is fourth in the world, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are ninth and tenth, respectively, St. Lucia is 18th and Bermuda is 30th. Grenada is in the process of gaining a world ranking.
The Cayman Islands Netball Association put together a roster of 13 women: Carrie Barnett-Carter, Marsha Campbell, Alexis Carias, Kayon Clarke, Katherine Gow, Nickesha Lynch, Tashena Parks, Nicola Pringle, Karen Smith-James, Keren Watson, Aaliyah Webb, Rosemarie Wilson and Teneisha Wilson. The group has been training since January.
Most of the girls have expressed confidence in Cayman’s abilities to compete. Some, like Katherine Gow, have said focusing on training and fundraising was tough.
“It’s been tough, I think that’s fair to say,” Gow said. “We’ve had six months and it’s been intensive training and fundraising. The thing that would have helped us a bit more would have been the corporate sponsorship, that was less forthcoming than we would have hoped. I think it’s a dual effort, it’s probably something we and the Cayman netball association probably need to get better at. But over the coming months, we’re hoping that maybe some of the large companies will be able to step up and help the sport.”
This is the first women’s team Cayman has fielded at an overseas event in years. While the players have significant local experience, few have competed on the international level with Carias, Webb and Rosemarie Wilson having played on Cayman’s national Under-21 team at the 2013 World Youth Netball Championships in Scotland. Funding had been an issue for the Canada trip as the association needed a total of $60,000 and struggled to raise over half of that sum in the past few months.
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