Results:
V Leweston, won 5 – 2
V King’s St Albans, won 9 – 4
V Greshams, lost 5 – 7
V Holy Cross, lost 2 – 6
V Swanbourne House, won 9 – 1
V Hawthorns, lost 2 – 5
V Cheam, lost 0 – 5
V The Study, lost 2 – 7
U11 Squad: Clare T (GA), Emily H (GS), Georgia R (GD), Imo C (GK), Beth M (WD); Georgina T (C), Poppy S & Amelia W (WD/WA).
CONGRATULATIONS U11 GIRLS! The IAPS Netball Secretaries told us that over 400 U11 teams had originally entered the IAPS Tournament this year and you were part of the top 8% who made it to the National Finals. After beating some of the teams in your group, you have actually made it into the top 5% of under 11 Prep school teams in the entire UK, what a fantastic achievement!!
After a leisurely drive down to Brighton on the Friday, we spent the night at a Premier Inn in Brighton, enjoying a celebratory dinner the night before and humungous breakfast on the Saturday. The set up at the hotel was perfect, with us being given a cluster of rooms all set around their own hallway (like our own wing!) After a team talk and sports psychology session the girls had gone off to bed confident and optimistic on the Friday evening and enjoyed a good night’s sleep, waking refreshed and ready to hit the court running.
We got off to an awesome start in the tournament, winning our first two games easily and not giving a point to the two opponents. We knew game 3 would be a toughie, facing Greshams, the winners of their region. We actually held them impressively, matching them goal for goal, but were just pipped at the end by two goals, nonetheless a superb performance against this slick, lean team. Our confidence took a slight blip after this game and we struggled to cope with the physical nature of Holy Cross’s game, with many contact and infringements not being blown to our detriment. Nonetheless after a rousing team talk we were back on track against Swanbourne House, winning easily and dominating play from the offset. Shooter Emily H was on fantastic form, our attacking players Clare, Georgina and Poppy’s passes were superb and Imo C marked her opponent impressively, keeping her to the edge of the D. Beth M, Amelia W and Georgia made some super touches and interceptions and assisted with the flow of the ball up the court.
This really was a tournament of two halves and disaster struck in game 6. An extremely physical team remained unchecked by the umpires and smashed our players all over the court. The girls were intimidated but desperately held their own, despite a huge difference in their size and build to this team. Then the inevitable happened with our GS Emily being totally floored by her opponent, after holding her space perfectly under the post. She came crashing to the ground, with the bigger opponent on top of her, spraining her ankle badly in the process. Her and the team were devastated to find her tournament was over and she was unable to put any weight on her foot at all. This was a great pity, as she had up to this point had a fabulous tournament and the rest of the team struggled in the game against Cheam, having had all their confidence knocked out of them. Cheam had lost to teams that we had easily beaten, so with a full strength squad undoubtedly the result would have been different. We faced the winners of the Roedean Tournament in our final game and put up a good fight, having rediscovered a little of our confidence, defence and mid court players worked very hard, but we really missed Emily, our kingpin in the D.
We must not lose sight of the fact that we had a fantastic morning and really gave the southern schools a run for their money. The atmosphere was brilliant with all of our trusty supporters having plenty to cheer about. Thank you to all of them for making the long journey, to Mrs Mitchell for helping with the weekend and accompanying us, Mr Cal for booking us such a good rooms and the Tour Fund for subsidizing the cost. A great experience for the dreamteam, I am sure they will be back next year for another bite of the cherry!!
DLB
Posted on
Sat, March 12, 2011
by MAC