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, Jamaica 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. Indeed, Jamaica led 3-1 at half time 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 at the end of the third 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 piled in two more goals to close the game in style and claim gold.

Coach Alrick Brown said that Jamaica is the better and fitter team at the tournament which led to the resulting wins.

“I am very happy and we are very proud of the girls. They did very well, they played very hard throughout these championships, hitting them hard every single quarter, those good swims, that hard defence and the results we got showed the results of their hard work.”

Brown suggested that experience had played a key role in the performance of his goalkeeper when it mattered most.

“Our goalkeeper Kayla-Dawn Hernandez

has been with us for a number of years, she kept us in a number of games last year, kept us at nil-all with the championship team going into that last quarter. Unfortunately we didn’t end up with the victory. I know she is a very hard worker and very talented and today she showed the fruits of her labour.”

The coach also praised the efforts of one of his big weapons who came up trumps when it really mattered.

“Zaydia Davis is one of our top swimmers and she knows that this is her role. She played good hard defence and then she countered on those girls and gave us those opportunities. She is one our weapons and she knew that this is her job, we get the ball and we counter and she produced for us”

Hernandez

 who celebrated her 17th birthday on Friday said she had to make amends for the goals that she conceded when the game got tight.

“I got really nervous and I thought that I messed up with the three goals that they scored. I should have saved them, so I told myself that I couldn’t let any more score and just be there for my team because they needed me. So I had to forget about the three goals that scored and just work hard and save all the shots.”

The gold medal she said was the perfect birthday present.

“It feels great to win a gold medal today. That was basically what I wanted for my birthday, I didn’t want anything else, just to win.”

Davis was happy that she was finally able to express herself in a way her coaches expected.

“I was told that I need to just go in and drive and swim down to the goal and pick up and shoot because I am usually very shy with shooting. This time I just picked them up and just put them in the back of the net, just as my coaches told me. It feels, really, really good, really good to get those goals today,” she said.

The fifth game of the series will be played on today’s final day of water polo action.

— Dwayne Richards