A very confident national Under-16 netball team departed the island yesterday en route to Barbados for the 16th staging of the 2016 Caribbean Netball Assocition Jean Pierre Youth Championship, scheduled for April 2-8.

The young Sunshine Girlz, who missed last year’s tournament in St Lucia and won by Barbados, have tasted tournament victory 10 out of the 11 times they have entered. The only loss was against St Kitts in 2005.

The championship will get under way tomorrow at the National Netball Stadium with hosts Barbados taking on Grenada on Court One at 6:00 pm and Trinidad and Tobago going up against Bermuda on Court Two at 6:15 pm.

Head coach Marvette Anderson, who has coached several teams in the Business House Netball Association (BHNA) competition during the 1990s, said she is confident that the present squad will get the job done.

“We have always produced good netballers, we have played a lot of netball here in Jamaica and so going down to the Caribbean is just all about playing some more netball. We have selected a core of girls who we think will best represent our country and the ones that we think will give us what we need and that is the title,” Anderson told the Jamaica Observer.

“We are very confident as I believe in the young ladies that we have, I believe in the programme that we have, I believe in the persons that are supporting the programme and I believe in the persons that are involved in the programme. I am confident that we can win this thing,” she further stated.

Anderson also said that the girls have been training “really hard” coming into this tournament.

“Training has been going very well, the girls really rose to the task and they have been training really hard for this tournament. I think that they will do a good job and bring us home the championship,” Anderson noted.

Squad — Lori Daley, Christal Holness, Zandria Cohen, Kamia Daley, Denay Thomas, Britney-Ann Elliott, Felicia Smith, Latanya Wilson, Shadine Bartley, Kimone Shaw, Abigale Sutherland and Brittany Morgan.