SVG finish last again in WI Schools’ Games

For the second consecutive year, St. Vincent and the Grenadines have ended in the cellar position of the annual Windward Islands Schools’ Games.

But Manager of the team, Elford Charles, on return last Monday saw the performance of the Vincentians on their Dominica outing as an improvement on last year’s.{{more}}

Charles pointed to the basketball unit finishing third rather than last in the previous year. He described the Games as “challenging but we could have done better”. A defensive Charles said that there were overall improvements and singled out discipline as one area.

“We were able to keep a good level of discipline”, Charles said.

The local team over the years have suffered from ill discipline included brawls among themselves and with other competing teams among other transgressions. On their 2006 sojourn, at least two members had to make an early exit from the Games for a very serious offence.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines continued to maintain their strangle hold on netball, winning that discipline. SVG beat Dominica 35-27, Grenada 29-23 and won from St. Lucia 38-36.

This was not enough to extricate them from the bottom as they lost all matches in the male and female segments of Volleyball. In the newly introduced female category SVG were beaten by Grenada 3-1, by Dominica 3-0 and St. Lucia also 3-0.Among the males, they lost to all three islands 3-0.

Track and Field did not fare any better as SVG placed last with 73 points, behind Grenada, Dominica and St. Lucia in that order.

In basketball, SVG lost to Grenada 58-71, to Dominica 45-57 with the match versus St. Lucia rained out.

Hopeful that football would have done better, SVG again finished second after drawing with St. Lucia 1-1, lost to Grenada 1-3, but beat Dominica 3-1.

Host Dominica and Grenada were overall joint champions and St. Lucia placed third.

Securing the Most Valuable Players’ awards for the disciplines for the Vincentians were Damien Ottley -Basketball, Anella Samuel -Netball, Shannique De Shong -female Volleyball, Ronnel Hunte -male Volleyball and Darren Hamlett -Football. Forty five athletes along with five coaches, chaperone Aldith Waldron and Charles made up the Vincentian contingent.

The coaches who made the trip were Rawlston Morgan- Athletics, Alrick Wright -Basketball, Christopher Harry -Football, Santa Cruickshank -Netball and Shaun Young -Volleyball.(RT)