On Saturday the u19 girls' netball team traveled to Mpelembe to participate
in the ISAZ Northern Region Qualifying Tournament. There were 8 schools in
attendance, but the teams in our pool were Lechwe, Simba and Ndola
Trust.
Our first game was against Ndola Trust. Right at the beginning
of the game we allowed them to score three goals and it took us a while to
wake up. When we finally did wake up, we played fairly well except for
some catching problems, movement and lost balls to wrong throwing
positions. It was very tight, but unfortunately we lost that very
important game 13 to 12.
Next we had to play Lechwe. In this
game, we were really lacking in defence. We were so disappointed by the
first loss, that I think it affected how hard we worked in this game. We had
some good moments of attack when we applied what we learned in training. But
unfortunately for us, we also lost that game 12 to 9.
So at this
point, having lost two of the three games we knew we hadn't qualified to go
for Nationals. But even so, we were encouraged to work hard in the last
game.
Our third and final game, at least we thought so, was against
Simba. We went into this game thinking it would be easy but soon learned we
would have to fight for the win. In the beginning, they started off
strong. We also scored a couple but they soon followed suit. At half
time the score was 6 all. We fought hard in the second half and soon got
a good rhythm going. So in the end, we won that game 13 to 10.
At
this point we discovered we had to play for 5th and 6th position, just in
case a team dropped out, so we would then get to go [to the
nationals].
Our final game was against Trident. We were a bit unsure
and dissappointed going into this game, but one thing we knew for sure was
that we wanted to win. From the get go we worked hard. The attack was in
sink as it flowed smoothly, and the defence was at its peak of the day.
I believe this was our best played game, and this was partly because
Trident themselves, played 'proper' netball. We displayed good attacking
moves and communication in this game, as we are usually a very mute
team. We were feeling very good as we played this game and that can
greatly be accredited to our very loud, encouraging and enthusiastic
cheer squad on the sideline that consisted of some of our very own boys
and a couple of girls as well who were allowed to come along and
support. We won that game 13 to 8.
Being mainly a 'new' team, I think
we played well. Thank you to the team for playing well and working hard, to
Mr and Mrs Grove for the coaching and in-between game talks and to God, for
the beautiful weather and opportunity to play. But on behalf of the team: a
big THANK YOU to the cheerleading squad that tirelessly kept us going
through the day and kept us "INTERNATIONAL"! (Which was something that they
kept shouting as they cheered)
It was a lovely experience!
Report
by G. Kampeni
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Halayna and Caitlin defending well |
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Shooting pair of Naomi and Kathleen |
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Hard working centre quartet: fr-bk Rosemary, Thoko, Grace and Natalie |
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Trident game where things finally came together |
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Half time team talk Mrs Grove with the girls |