Amano Christian School: U19G Netball Regionals

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