Barbados qualifies for 2019 Netball World Cup

Barbados has done it! They have qualified for the 2019 Netball World Cup slated for July in Liverpool.

This is a result of Barbados maintaining their perfect record in the Americas Federation of Netball Association’s World Cup qualifiers at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium.
Barbados defeated Grenada 58-43 in a game where coach of the team Sandra Bruce-Small only made one substitution but said that they achieved their first goal – which was to qualify .

Shonica Wharton started at Goal Shoot while Latonia Blackman sat out the game and Nikita Piggott-Payne started at goal Attack.

The Coach mentioned that she had normally made changes at the halfway point of the game bringing in fresh legs and this change by playing a flat seven was a way for the players to play the entire game in an effort to get match fit.

“We look at various combinations and we want to see the girls under a lot of pressure because we played this seven today doesn’t mean we will play that seven tomorrow. However it is important that we run them for a full game. We were only running half; you may not get match fit so we want to make sure that we can push the seven so they can see that they can play that full hour without tiring.” said Bruce-Small.

Barbados only led by two goals at the end of the first quarter, 14-12 but managed to pull away slightly by the end of the half 30-24.

Wharton finished with 43 goals from 51 attempts, while Piggott-Payne had 15 from 24.

The Barbados coach said, “I thought Grenada played very well and they put us under pressure early but we spoke to the girls and they knew that they would be coming hard and they were supposed to handle that pressure and stay calm under that pressure, and then push on.”

With their final match against Trinidad and Tobago yesterday Bruce-Small said that they would be going for broke as Trinidad always has a good squad and gives them a challenge. (CG)