Silver in ISAZ Netball

The 18 of March, 2017, brought us back to Baobab, this time to compete in the national ISAZ netball tournament. There were eight schools that had qualified in their regional games but we were only in a pool of three other schools. In our pool were LICS, Lechwe, and Rhodes Park.

New girl Naomi stepped up well to the challenge of GS

Shoshanna holding her ground in defence

 Our first game was against LICS. I think that most of us were still waking up from the half hour bus ride although we had got there an hour before the games had started. We did not have very good defence in this game but it did improve in the second half. However, we beat LICS 10 to 4. Lechwe was our second game. We had lost to them in a previous tournament but this time we beat them 10 to 4. Our next competitor was Rhodes Park. We slacked off a bit more, giving away some easy shots resulting in the score being 9 to 5. We did win this game though.

Because we won all of our pool games, it put us at the top, moving us up to the semi-finals [to play group B runners up]. There was a lot of pressure as we played Banani because we wanted to secure a place in the finals as we did not want the pressure of playing for third and fourth position. We figured that if we won this game that we would likely be playing Chengelo in the finals. This was not the most pleasant thought to dwell on [Chengelo have dominated ISAZ netball for years] but we tried to concentrate on the game that we were playing. There was quite a bit of contact in this game but we beat them by two points with the scores being 11 to 9.

Natasha working hard as always

We were now in the finals…against Chengelo. We had played them in the regionals and had lost to them. The description of that game was related to the story of David and Goliath. It again rang true as we most likely had the shortest player of the tournament on our team and they had the tallest. It was a forty minute game with ten minute quarters. We scored the first point of the match. This lifted our hopes of being able to conquer them. They then scored the next four points and our hopes smashed to pieces on the concrete court. This was usually the pattern of how the points were allotted. Our last quarter of the match was our best. We realized then that we needed to have fun. We knew before the game that we were to have fun but I think that it only happened until this last quarter. The scores for this last match of the day, and for some, the last match they would play representing Amano were 32 to 7. Chengelo beat us but I am thankful for the hard work and good attitude that the team and Mr. and Mrs. Grove put in. As a result of all the efforts, we came second in the national ISAZ netball tournament.

Silver Team!

We played well as a team and I would like to thank the team for changing their attitude from the day before. Diana Shakwelele, Natasha Chiombe, Kathleen Kaufman, Grace Kampeni, and Naomi Ronald were brilliant attackers. Josiah Muteb, Fernulla Millner, Faith Chansa, Rosemary Nawakwi, and I were excellent defenders. Thank you so much. To Mrs. Grove, we got a silver medal, but I think that as a team we would agree that you would get a gold medal if there ever was a competition to see who the best coach is. Thank you all, once again.

Report by S. Ronald