By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net    

THE Bahamas Basketball Federation (BBF) has fielded a 12-member junior under-15 women’s national basketball team to represent the country at the FIBA Centrobasket U15 Women’s Championship in David, Panama. 

The national team made their commute to the host country on Tuesday and will be competing from July 24-28 in Group B. 

The Bahamas will begin Group B play today against Costa Rica in the Gimnasio La Basita at 5pm.

Members named to the national team are Tajhanique Morley, Andica Curtis, Sahnai Nixon, Faith Burns, Zuri Hanna, Kayla Bien, Jada Frazer, Riccara Beadle, Danica Simmons, Skye Wilmott, Anthonique Pedican, and Melodi Ferguson. 

The coaching staff includes head coach Anton Francis and he will be assisted by Diasti Delancy and Tiffany Wildgoose. Deandra Cunningham and Latoya Silver will serve as the team manager and team delegate respectively.

Francis, head coach of the U15 women’s national basketball team, believes that this group of players have what it takes to secure a podium spot and qualify for the FIBA U16 Women’s AmeriCup 2025.

“We believe that we have picked the best possible and available 12 [players] from The Bahamas and that we can represent well. Hopefully, we are in the medal contention and that we can bring home a medal for The Bahamas and qualify for the next advanced age group in 2025,” coach Francis said. 

The Bahamas will play in Group B along with Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Costa Rica. Each team will have an opportunity to face off against the opposing national teams in Group B and the top two finishers of Group A and B will advance to the semi-finals. The remaining teams will jockey for the positions 5 through 8. The top three finishers in the tournament will move on to the FIBA U16 Women’s AmeriCup 2025.

Following today’s game, The Bahamas will match up against El Salvador at 2pm on Thursday and will play the third game of the group stage versus Puerto Rico at 2pm on Friday.

Coach Francis expressed that the team will rely on some strong guard play to take them through the next few days of group play.

“We have some excellent guards in our backcourt with Tajhanique Morley and Andica Curtis. We also have Riccara Beadle and also Sahnai Nixon. We are gonna rely heavily on some good guard play and some very highly skilled young ladies that can actually shoot. We believe that this year we are gonna represent well. Hopefully, the girls are able to leave it all out on the floor. Our coaching staff is gonna do our best to support them and push them and we believe we have prepared them to the best of our abilities and hopefully we can do well,” he said.

Mexico is the reigning champion of the FIBA Centrobasket U15 Women’s Tournament hosted in Puerto Rico in 2022. The host country finished with the silver medal and the Dominican Republic was third overall.

The Bahamas ended their tournament experience ranked fourth overall after losing to the Dominican Republic 79-39 in the third place game.