After a wet start to the day, it was a lovely evening for the first competitive game of netball, away at Whitehill.
The A-team girls were the first to play and with just one practice of 7-a-side, the girls made a sound start to the game. Whitehill were fielding one boy on the wing but this did not perturb the girls.
Marking was a little slow to start with and rather large gaps were left between the girls and their partners. After going one goal down the girls really started to think about what they were doing and getting a goal to equalise raised their level of play. Passing became better as they started to spread out and use the space on the court. The final score of 5-1 was a credit to the girls shooting, defending and passing. It was a fantastic first game from both teams and when the two footballers return to the Whitehill A-team they will be formidable opponents.
The B-team girls were eager to get playing and certainly carried on from where they left off at netball training. They remembered their positions and moved the ball around the court, working hard to find space and master accurate passing. Once again the shooting was a credit to the lunch time practising that many of the girls do. The first half saw the girls draw ahead with a 2-0 lead. Whitehill responded by marking harder and pulled the game back scoring two goals. William Ransom had a 3-2 lead at half time. With a rotation and new positions for everyone the girls settled quickly. The goals started to mount up and the defence were strong and prevented Whitehill scoring any more goals. The final score was 8-3 to William Ransom and the girls should be very proud of the way they played.
The experience of playing games against other schools will highlight which skills are still required to make their game even stronger and netball practices will focus on what we learn from our competitive games.