ISAZ Cross Country

Caitlin at the finish

Once again Amano was host to the ISAZ Northern Region cross country meet. This year Lechwe, Simba and Ndola Trust attended and Lifesong Orphanage and Abba's Heart were invited as guests, so running in the same races but competing in a different category. The secondary course was 5km through Amano bush and the route was the reverse of our first meet five years ago. U13's ran a new distance of 3kms, which enables the race to include a few natural obstacles like the flowing stream to add interest to the beautiful bush.

As always, first off were the U13 teams. This year Amano could field 2 boys teams and 1 girls team. These teams compete for individual medals but also their combined score is used to determine the winner for the U13 Trophy. This year ISAZ winners were Ndola Trust on 134pts. Lifesong won both boys and girls races with a combined score of 47pts! The Amano boys came 3rd on 72pts with a very good effort from Xavier who came in 4th place. Given he was sick the whole week this is an excellent show of determination. A number of other boys stepped into the team at the last minute to make a good all round effort. The girls finished with 99 points so in last place. This is good given the fact that most of this team will still compete next year. Natalie came in 14th place as the first Amano girl so a tough competition for them.

The Open Challenge begins

 The Open competition had 2 Amano girls teams and 3 boys teams. Newcomer to Amano this year is Rosemary, who did extremely well coming in first place by a good margin. This was backed up by the rest of the A team (Diana 5th, Kathleen 6th, Fernulla 11th and Janki 12th) and so first place was secured for Amano on 38pts. The B team also put in a solid performance with a 4th place finish (96pts), Lechwe's A and B teams coming in between. The Boys fared just as well with James coming in first place and backed up by Jackson 5th, Ilunga 6th, Fungai 9th and Mwansa 11th to secure the Open Trophy for Amano on 70pts overall.

James and Diana victorious

 It is a great opportunity to get town kids out and enjoy God's creation. Amano has been blessed with a lot of land for a Copperbelt school and feedback this year was positive from visiting school students that they "enjoyed" the experience, well as much as anyone could enjoy racing for 5kms!
 Well done to our students. It was a better finish for our primaries, so things look good for next year, and our secondaries retained the trophy. We thank the other schools for traveling, and our board for being positive about hosting such events.

Report by Mr Grove

Zone 1 Boys U19 Football

On Saturday 13th February we went to Mpelembe Secondary School to play Zone 1 football matches. On the day there were three other schools present, Kalulushi Trust, Lechwe and the home team Mpelembe.
We were scheduled to play Kalulushi Trust School first but they arrived late giving us a 3 - 0 advantage due to forfeit. We still played a "friendly" match and drew the game 1 - 1.
Our second game was against Mpelembe and they had a lot of home support. This was clearly the most challenging match as they had a really strong team. In the first half we conceded a goal from our opponents but a goal from Daniel made the scores level and that is how the game ended.

Daniel Equalising

Our third and final match was against Lechwe School and we had beaten them 1 - 0 in the first week
but in the second we gave it our best  and a hat trick from Paul, a brace by Daniel and a goal from Yarel gave us a 6 - 0 win, the highest amount of goals in an 11 aside ISAZ football tournament.

Paul having a go

 Overall I was pleased with the team, we worked very well together and managed to come out first overall [by goal difference]. I'd like to thank Mr Grove and Mr Jacob for their support and for taking us to compete.

GK Cholwe was active in the 1-1 draw

Mthunzi, one of a number of new players, competed well

Report by James McBride

ISAZ 7s Rugby

Last week Saturday on the 13 of February, over mid-term break, we traveled to Simba for the ISAZ 7’s Rugby. The tournament comprised of four schools: Simba, Mpelembe, Chengelo and Amano. The fixtures were round robin, our first game was against Chengelo, the toughest and most experienced team; and since we were a new team, with much less experience in such a field, it was hard for the players to adapt into their roles and positions. Because of this we were under pressure throughout the game, having to defend Chengelo at our try line. Even though we had opportunities in the game, because we lacked experience, we didn’t use them wisely; so they took advantage of that and continued to hammer us with their big guys, but because we stood strong as a team we managed to seal a 0 - 0 draw against Chengelo

New boy Philip on a break away

Our second game was against Simba, which even though it wasn’t as tactical as our earlier game, it was definately a whole lot more physical. They had guys twice our size running at us, which was their plan because they weren’t fast, just really big and heavy. In the first half their strategy worked well seeing as we spent most of it in our half, but when the second half came it was a complete switch over. After our discussion with Mr Grove we went to the second half more aware of our mistakes. Which allowed to us to really progress more strongly into the game by moving the ball around and finally we started to get our breaks. With a vigorous run by Musonda all the way from half way to the Simba try line, but just before he got to it he made the mistake of putting it down, then after celebrating his joy was dropped when he realized his fault sadly. Then we also had a couple of tenacious runs from Philip who stormed down the rugby field but every time he was halted a metre from putting it down. He was slammed by the Simba defence, but then we made a crucial mistake by two of our men going for one of Simba's giants. Which allowed them to off load the ball to the wing and score a try. Luckily they missed the conversion but right afterwards we came back with an energetic drive getting us right by the try-line then with a quick recycle Mwansa scored a try. He then went on to seal our win with the conversion kick ending the game 6-5 [all kicks were 1 point only] to us.

Mwansa evading Simba for a try

Then finally for our last game we went against Mpelembe, the last years champs, which even though they had a fairly new team still comprised many of their key men. We started the game tensed,  both coming at each other with everything we had, as it was both our last game; but finally to break the dead lock, we worked as a team challenging Mpelembe's defense till it finally broke. When they made a critical mistake by taking our one guy down with two of their guys it allowed us to pass the
ball down to our winger James who made a emphatic run from our try line all the way to their try-line. Then Mwansa came to finish of with a conversion kick and everything seemed to be going well until "the knock" happened. Philip and one of Mpelembe's players came charging into each other, colliding face first, which left Philip knocked out cold. After both guys were escorted off the field we made our substitution and the game continued. Since we didn’t have any other players who play in the scrum [Justin was off in the first game with a head injury] we put in our fellow speedster Theo. Who even though had never played prop in his life before and even though he did struggle in the contact and position role, he still made a great partnership with Paul on the wing, getting the ball moving fast and challenging the Mpelembe defense to drop; but sadly we made a decisive mistake on one of the scrums, which lead to Mpelembe scoring a try and coming right back into the game to end it in a tie at 6-6.

Tarisai in the action against Mpelembe

Overall I believe the team played stupendously, seeing as it was their first time getting involved in anything as physical as this. Plus they didn’t know the roles of their positions and lacked experience. So I'd just like to thank all of them, even though I didn’t mention people like Tarisai and Mthunzi who helped keep a strong back, Cholwe for giving the other scrumhalf a rough time.

2nd Place and happy

Overall we came out second in the tournament, we were also the most awarded team with Mwansa winning "Best young player for Amano", Philip won "Player of the tournament" and James
won "Best Try of the Tournament".

U19 Girl's Football

On Saturday January 30th Lechwe School hosted an under 19 football tournament. The Participants in this event were; Trident, Mpelembe, Lechwe and Amano girls.

Amano girl’s first game was against Lechwe girls. Even though we were tired from playing netball matches before this game, we kept pushing through out the game but unfortunately we lost the game 1-0. Our next game was against Trident, our defence was strong, the girls kept on pushing and Diana managed to score a goal. Sadly we lost that game 2-1. Our last and final game was played against Mpelembe. We were tired and it was extremely hot, despite that we kept on pushing through out the game, but sadly we ended up losing that game with a shocking 2-0.

Over all, we played well, we tried to keep up with every thing and our defences were good, the girls pushed themselves to the furthest. I would like to thank Mr Grove for coaching us and the team for their hard work and positive attitudes. 

Report by Bisa Bwalya

A close call for Amano

Captain Bisa on the ball against Lechwe

On Saturday February 6th Mpelembe School hosted an Under 19 Zone 1 football tournament. The schools participating in this event were Lechwe, Mpelembe, and Kalulushi Trust. I had the privilege of being Amano girl’s team captain

Our first game was against Kalulushi Trust, this team was easier to play compared to the previous games. We saw their weak points and we used that to our advantage. We played with so much determination and emerged as winners in a 5-0 game. Of the five goals we scored four were struck in by Diana and the other one by Josiah.

Our next game was against Mpelembe. They were a tougher and more intimidating team, which resulted in a 2-0 win game to Mpelembe. 

Our last and final game was against Lechwe School. We started out well and scored two goals in the first half. One goal was struck in by Natalya and the other one headed in by me. However, they made a come-back, rising up to 2 goals. This game would have ended in a draw if an unfortunate event of Kathleen accidently scoring for the opposite team would not have happened.

Overall, I was very impressed with the improvement of the team and their good spirits. I would like to thank Mr. Grove for supporting us the whole way despite our shortcomings.   

Report by Bisa Bwalya

Zone 1 Netball - Lechwe

On the 30th of January, we had our first set of netball games for the season. We were excited and looking forward for some competition in netball this year. We had a variety of different people in the team and well trained too.
Our first game was against Trident College. It was a fairly clean game, considering the fact that it was our first game of the season. We coordinated well and put up a good game. We won that game 5-11. Most of the shots were made by Miss Kathleen!
Our second game was against Lechwe. That was a tiresome game. We became a bit sloppy and lost focus. It was a close game. In the second half of the game, they managed to break through our defence and get ahead of us by 4 shots. They eventually won that game 11-7.
Our third game was against Kalulushi Trust girls. They’re known to be a rough team in the past. Well, they managed to clean up their act and became sharper and more focused. It was quite a game they put up, but we didn’t give up either and we also won that game 3-14.
Our last game was against Mpelembe. They are also known to be a rough team from past experiences, but they also cleaned up their act. We played well in that game too, moving faster, sharper, and quick reactions which eventually led to a win of 9-17!
Overall the girls did very well and we came out 2nd. It was our first tournament of the season, and the effort and work  was lovely to witness! I believe they will become a stronger team as time goes by.

GD Janki the Captain and Shoshanna GK

Reported by: Janki Desai (Netball Captain)