JDA highly confident ahead of Caribbean Cup in July
MANAGER OF the Jamaica Darts Association (JDA) team Carol Cheese is confident that the national team can take home the Caribbean Darts Championship title, six months ahead of the biannual event from July 6-16 in Trinidad.
Jamaica will also participate in the Americas Cup for the first time.
“It is not just the Caribbean Cup, but also Americas Cup. In the Americas Cup, it is a small team of five persons where countries like Canada are eligible to participate,” she explained.
“Once the Americas Cup ends, then the Caribbean Cup begins. We are expected to play a lot of darts, and hoping to win the Caribbean Championship this year because we have a really strong team,” Cheese told The Gleaner during a training session last Tuesday night at Chelsea Jerk Centre in St Andrew.
“We have former Jamaican champion Hubert ‘Tenge’ Brown back in the team. He went all out to make the team. He has been out for a while, but is ranked number three right now. He will add experience. We also have number-one ranked Birthright and number-two ranked Damion Cheese on the team,” she shared.
STRONG FEMALE CONTINGENT
“On the female side, we have number-one ranked Jennifer Reid, number-two Mernel Brown and number three Catherine Stewart. These are all returning players. As I said, we have a fantastic team going forward. Reid is a former Caribbean Cup Open single champion. At the time, the Open single was for male and female,” Cheese pointed out.
“For the first time, Jamaica will be taking an Under-18 team to the championship. We have recruited for that segment and will have two boys and two girls on the team after a trial this month end. We are really looking forward to coming home with the title this year,” the manager added.
“We placed seventh in 2014 and moved up two places to fifth in 2016, and this year we believe we can take home the title,” Cheese said.
The team registered four wins at the previous championship to avoid early elimination but went down to eventual champions Florida in a decisive match.
The male team by rankings read: 1. Mark Birthwright,
2. Damion Cheese, 3. Tenge Brown, 4.Lynford Jonas, 5. Winston Ferguson, 6. Albert Bailey, 7. Marco Walters, 8. Anthony Johnson, 9. David Green, 10. Richard McKenzie, 11. Oscar Wright, 12. Gairy Cowan, 13. Derrick Shim, 14. Colin Chandia, 15. Martel Dias, 16. Shawn Noteman.
Ladies - 1. Jennifer Reid, 2. Mernel Brown, 3. Catherine Stewart
4. Novlett Bewry, 5. Norma Bowen, 6. Carol Cheese, 7. Princess Brown, 8. Charlene Cowan, 9. Shavelle Graham.