KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s Under-19 girls water polo team claimed the first gold medal of the 2018 Carifta Swimming Championships when they defeated Barbados 8-3 in the third game of a best-of-five series to take an unassailable lead at the National Aquatics Centre in Kingston on Saturday

.

After easily dispatching their opponents 16-3 and 16-7 on Friday’s day one, the home team knew they were one game away from the gold medal. With Barbados fighting for their lives, it turned out to be a closer game than the previous two. Jamaica led 3-1 at halftime as Barbados gave a much better account of themselves in a bid to extend the series.

Barbados continued the fight in the third quarter, closing the gap to 4-3 as they continued to believe that they were in with a shot of getting their first win in the series. It took some good goalkeeping from Kayla-Dawn Hernandez to keep the Jamaican noses in front as the quarter came to an end.

A strong and decisive effort from Zaydia Davis late in the fourth quarter helped wrestle control for Jamaica as her two goals in two minutes

created some daylight between the two teams as Jamaica led 6-3 with less than two minutes to play.

With the spirit of the visitors broken, Jamaica pumped in two more goals to close the game in style and claim gold.

The fifth game of the series will be played on Sunday’s

final day of water polo action.

Dwayne Richards