UWI take UWI/UTech Champs

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

The University of the West Indies (UWI) Pelicans, captured the first annual staging of the UWI/University of Technology (UTech) Sports Championships on Saturday at the Mona campus.

The Pelicans won the championships, by defeating UTech 4-1 in the five sports that were contested during the day's activities.

It was UTech, who struck first when they defeated the Pelicans by one wicket, to win their Twenty20 cricket competition. The Pelicans batted first and were bowled out for 74 in 19 overs. Alex Robinson (16) and Ron Cushine (16) were the leading scorers for Pelicans. Lionel Morant took 3-12 for UWI. In reply, UTech made 75-9 with two balls to spare. Elvis Watson (12) and Oniel Wright (12) were the main scorers for UTech.

The Pelicans then rallied to tie things up, when they defeated UTech 2-1 (25-14, 25-27 and 15-9) to win the volleyball competition. The Pelicans then took the lead by edging UTech 3-2 in the football tournament. Anthony Grant scored all three goals for the Pelicans.

The Pelicans went on to beat UTech 54-51 in the basketball competition and 24-20 in the netball tournament to wrap up the win.

Anthony Davis, director of sports at UTech and organiser of the championships, said the main focus of the event is to bring both colleges together to highlight the importance of university sports.

"We are really trying to highlight university sports and I think that both UTech and UWI have similar challenges, in that many of the students are very active in hall and faculty sports, but when it comes to representing the institutions they are not as enthusiastic about it," said Davis.