Year 3+4 Netball Festival Heads South
Nine teams from seven local primary schools took part in a fabulous netball festival at The Bridge leisure centre this afternoon. Southwater Junior Academy took the competition honours of the event but in truth the biggest winner was fun. Around 90 children has a great time in a festival that, by teacher request, involved sections of skills development, rules learning and a second honour of competitive matchplay.
After a mass warm-up the skills learning section involved focus on passing and shooting techniques, including a bit of inter-team competition to add a bit of intensity to the learning. The youngsters applied themselves brilliantly to the tasks presented.
The second hour required to put their refined skills into action in the matches with the nine teams being divided into three first stage round-robin groups of three, over three courts to complete the ‘theme-of-three’!
Southwater scored big wins in both their Group A matches to qualify for the top tier. Leechpool A also progressed from Group C with two victories whilst Shelley A had a tougher job to come through as Group C, St Mary’s Pulborough holding them to a tense goalless draw in their second fixture.
The second stage winners group was closely contested. Southwater won the match of the day 3-2 against Shelley A before nudging past Leechpool A by a single goal to win the title. Leechpool A also relied on a single strike to beat Shelley A to earn runners-up spot. All matches in the seconds group finished with a 1-0 scoreline and Leechpool B were on the right side of two of them to top the mid section and come fourth overall. And in the thirds group Warnham and Pulborough both beat Shelley B by a single goal, and drawing 0-0 when the met each other came to share seventh spot.
The future of netball in the Horsham District looks bright if this event is any indication to go by!
RESULTS
| COURT 1 Group A Warnham 3pts Southwater 10pts Leechpool B 6pts | COURT 2 Group B Loxwood 6pts Shelley A 8pts St Mary’s Pulborough 4pts | COURT 3 Group C Holbrook 4pts (second as won toss) Leechpool A 10pts Shelley B 4pts |
| 5pts win, 3 draw, 1 loss, 1 extra for loss where score 50% or more of opponent’s winning score | ||
| PHASE 1 – GROUPS | ||
2.20-2.29 | 0 Warnham v Southwater 8 | 0 Loxwood v Shelley A 3 | 0 Holbrook v Shelley B 0 |
2.31-2.40 | 1 Warnham v Leechpool B 2 | 2 Loxwood v Pulboro 0 | 0 Holbrook v Leechpool A 2 |
2.42-2.51 | 5 Southwater v Leechpool B 0 | 0 Shelley A v Pulboro 0 | 0 Shelley B v Leechpool A 2 |
| PHASE 2 – PLAY-OFFS | ||
| WINNERS GROUP Southwater 10pts Leechpool 6pts Shelley 3pts | RUNNERS-UP GROUP Leechpool B 10pts Loxwood 6pts Holbrook 2pts | THIRDS GROUP Warnham 8pts = St Mary’s Pulborough 8pts = Shelley B 2pts |
2.54-3.03 | 1st Gp A v 1st Gp B 3 Southwater v Shelley A 2 | 2nd Gp A v 2nd Gp C 1 Leechpool B v Holbrook 0 | 3rd Gp C v 3rd Gp A 0 Shelley B v Warnham 1 |
3.05-3.14 | 1st Gp A v 1st Gp C 1 Southwater v Leechpool A 0 | 2nd Gp B v 2nd Gp C 1 Loxwood v Holbrook 0 | 3rd Gp B v 3rd Gp A 0 Pulborough v Warnham 0 |
3.16-3.25 | 1st Gp C v 1st Gp B 1 Leechpool A v Shelley B 0 | 2nd Gp A v 2nd Gp B 1 Leechpool B v Loxwood 0 | 3rd Gp C v 3rd Gp B 0 Shelley B v Pulboro 1 |