On Thursday, our U13A Netball team travelled to Loughborough for the ISA Regional Tournament, the first time this has been possible in two years! There was great excitement, especially upon seeing the sporting set up at Loughborough; a town geared for physical activity.
The games came thick and fast with all the initial round matches being played back to back, each 15 minutes in length. The toughest game was the first, against King’s High, with our team losing 2 – 8 against a slick side, undoubtedly with a lot of experience. S. Anselm’s went on to beat all of the other opposition comfortably, however, to finish second in the group, beating Bedstone College 15 – 3; Arnold Lodge 10 – 1; Kingsley School 8 – 3,and Bowbrook School 10 – 0.
Our girls then went through to the knockout stages of the competition and faced Twycross in the quarter finals, with a convincing 16 -2 victory. The semi final game against Princethorpe College initially saw S. Anselm’s trailing 2 – 3 at half time, but the girls dug in, showing real determination and skill to finish the game as the victors with a score of 8 – 4.
In the final, our team once again faced our first team of the tournament, King’s High. By half time, we were trailing 2 – 3 but started the second half with pure guts and determination to go 4 – 3 ahead, eventually running out of steam in the final part of the game to trail 5 – 8 at full time. We later found out that a number of the King’s High squad are members of the Loughborough Lightning junior squad, so all things considered we are proud of our achievement.
As runners up of the tournament, S. Anselm’s will now travel to Rugby on Wednesday 9th March to represent our region in the ISA National Netball Finals. Please keep everything crossed for the girls!