Succession planning doing it for BHS – Wollis Christopher

The GTM Bethel High School’s senior netball team was always favoured to take the Ministry of Education’s tournament, thus retaining the title.

That was the expectation of the team’s coach, Wollis Christopher, which he expressed after his charges ran away with the 2014 edition last Friday afternoon at the Arnos Vale Netball Complex.{{more}}

Christopher said that the team had positioned itself for the undertaking through a simple methodology of succession planning.

Christopher underscored the participation of the team in the LIME National Club Tournament as the breeder for the players.

“That is always the answer to our success, as it helps to blood a number of players …When we go into the national competition, we do not use players in Form 5, who would not be returning to school, but those from the lower forms to prepare them for the school tournament,” Christopher advanced.

GTM Bethel High participates in the national club tournament as a Division Three outfit.

Christopher added that the current senior team which distanced Fast Cash Emmanuel High Mespo in last Friday’s final, featured most of the players who were part of the school’s junior team which copped the division in 2012 and did so again in 2013.

Also, the Bethel High School’s team boasts the core of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Under-16 team, which contested the Jean Pierre Caribbean Netball Association championships in Antigua last April, placing third behind perennial winners Jamaica and second placed – Barbados.

Despite such factors in their favour, Christopher thought it was all too easy in the final, as he expected the opponents to have come with more steel and fight.

“I was disappointed with the Emmanuel Mespo team not putting up too much of a fight,” he said.

From the opening play, it was evident that it was a mismatch, as Bethel established a 13-2 lead at the end of the first quarter and extended it to 25-8 at the end of the second.

Bethel finished the third quarter 32-11 in the ascendancy and closed off the lopsided affair 39-16.