LeVaughn Flynn, Staff Reporter

Jamaica's Stefan Nelson (right) celebrates his fourth-quarter goal with teammate Matthew Williams during the CARIFTA Water Polo Championships bronze medal game against The Bahamas yesterday at the National Stadium Pool. Jamaica won 12-3. - Photo by LeVaughn Flynn

Jamaica claimed two medals yesterday as the sixth CARIFTA Water Polo Cham-pionships came to an end at the National Stadium pool.

The 18 and under girls lost 2-16 in the championship game to Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) to claim the silver medal, while the 18 and under boys beat The Bahamas 12-3 for the bronze.

T&T were winning their third straight girls' title and their class showed in the final game.

At the end of the first quarter, they were only leading 2-0, but with swift counter-attacks, they were up 10-0 at the half with Kelcie Ferreira scoring four goals and Adana Welch-Phillips scoring three in the second period.

Tepid in attack

Jamaica did not score until the third quarter courtesy of Gabrielle Mesquita, who also scored again in the fourth quarter.

The Jamaicans have only themselves to blame, however, as they were very tepid in attack and too passive on defence.

Despite the blow-out, Jamaica's Hungarian coach David Hanczar said he was satisfied with the team's performance.

"I'm happy for the silver," he said.

Trinidad coach Andrew Francis was diplomatic in victory.

"Playing for a medal is always a challenge - it is much different than the preliminaries," said Francis. "But we just had the confidence that we beat them before and we can do it again. I knew we had faster swimmers and we kind of utilised that."

Like T&T, Jamaica had an easy path to the medal podium against The Bahamas.

Jamaica, who were in charge from the beginning, had quarterly leads of 2-1, 7-1 and 9-1 before letting in two late goals for a 12-3 finish.

Jamaica's 18 and under boys coach Nakemo Mattocks said he instructed his team to take advantage of their opponents' indiscipline on defence.

Play offence

"We told them to press them because we noticed they weren't swimming back and we had an easy field to go up to and play offence," noted Mattocks.

Bahamas coach Laszlo Bor-bely, the Hungarian who was in charge of Jamaica's water polo teams up to last year, said: "It was a very interesting feeling. Of course, I would like my team to beat Jamaica, but at the same time I see some of my formations being used by them and some of the players I developed when I came here played really well."

Jamaica got their goals from captain Justin Taylor (3), Alva Walters (2), Matthew Williams (2), Jonathan Hernould, Stefan Nelson, Nichoals Jones, Zawdie Coke and Adrian Fisher.

In the boys' 18 and under championship game, Curacoa beat Trini-dad and Tobago 6-4.