Paul-Andre Walker, Staff Reporter
JAMAICA'S UNDER-21 Sunshine Girls romped to their sixth consecutive victory and their second in the second round of the World Youth Netball Championships at the Broward County Convention Centre in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, yesterday.
Playing against Malaysia, supposedly their toughest assignment of the second round, the Jamaicans easily racked up a 79-20 victory in a game that could have been called at the end of the third quarter.
The Jamaicans started confidently, jumping to a three-goal lead in the first quarter but then watched as the Malaysians levelled the score at 3-3.
From that position, and with the crowd expecting a good contest, Jamaica disappointed the Asians by easing themselves to a comfortable 19-7 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter saw the Jamaicans passing the ball around more effectively than they did against Botswana in their previous match and that resulted in a 40-11 lead for the young Sunshine Girls at halftime.
Jamaica then slowed their scoring rate a little, as some complacency set in, but not enough for the Malaysians to have a whiff of getting back into the game and it was 56-16 at the final break.
Today, the Jamaicans will play regional rivals Trinidad and Tobago in a game that should produce no surprises.
The only difference from previous encounters to date is that the Trinidadians are the only team with prior experience of the Jamaican style of play.
However, that is unlikely to help them negate the prowess of the Jamaicans.
To their credit, the Trinidadians have been having a monster second round and have gone unbeaten.
They beat Malaysia in a 48-46 shocker on Wednesday before having a good day yesterday against Botswana where they won a humdinger 45-44.
In other games played early yesterday, St. Lucia beat Bermuda 64-25 and Barbados beat Antigua and Barbuda 65-46 in matches from the developmental pool.
In Pool E, in which Australia are the top team, Wales beat Fiji 54-38.
