On Monday 8th April, our Year 8 Netball squad travelled to St fanchea;’s college to take part in their annual Blitz.
Five schools took part with everyone playing everyone in a fast and furious day of action packed Netball ( games lasting 10 minutes each). The schools involved were Fivemiletown College (FC), Devenish College (DC), St. Fanchea’s College (SFC), St Kevin’s College (SKL) and Enniskillen Royal Grammar School (ERGS).
Our girls were first onto the court against FC. Always nerve-wracking to start, but they handled themselves very well. Super play in the centre from Eva Johnston, allowing Ruby Cobain or Oliwia Jusiak to feed the ball into the circle where Gemma Elliott had her eyes firmly on the net for a goal. Also strong in defense were Emily Gray and Annabelle Crawford, ensuring that FC didn’t have many opportunites to shoot. A great start with a win by 7 goals to 0.
For the second game, the team was totally changed to allow everyone to get a chance to play. This was much tighter, with the goals harder to come by. Good play from Emily Longworth, Annabelle Kingston and Heather McCaffrey ensured that the ball was kept out of the oppositions circle and passed up through Jessica Stronge and Hannah Dundas into the circle for Mia Deane or Gemma Elliott to score. Equally though, SFC were able to keep the ball away from our circle, minimising our chances. As the game progressed with each team wanting the win, the ERGS girls suddenly seemed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, and play a more fluid game. This resulted in a narrow win by 4 goals to 2 for ERGS.
In order to give all the girls from each of the schools a chance to get game time, we slotted in a few extra matches to facilitate this. We played SKL and won 3-0 – fine shooting from Chloe Dougherty. Then we played DC and won 2-1. Two rather close games, but good to get each school playing everyone they brought.
Our next game in the Blitz was against SKL. The girls were quite fired up as they came onto the court having won two ‘A’ games and 2 ‘B’ games already. They got straight to it. Eva accurately passed to Oliwia or Ruby from the centre pass who then fed the ball nicely into the circle for Gemma to slot into the net. This was a strong game for ERGS and they emerged victors by 8 goals to 0.
Our final game was to be the decider of the Blitz. We faced Devenish college who had also won all their games up until this point. Who would it be? Great friends amongst the two teams, but rivals nonetheless! ERGS got the first score, which was a relief. However, the game flowed back and forth with both teams really working hard to feed the ball into their own shooting circle. The next score also went to ERGS, but they couldn’t breathe any sigh of relief yet, as they teams were so close in skill level. Just to prove this, DC got the next score. Time was ticking away, but the ERGS girls wouldn’t slow down. They were strong in defence, blocking a good many shots on goal. The midfield worked so well together that eventually, it was too much for the DC team, and we won by 4 goals to 1.
ERGS – 1st ; DC -2nd and FC – 3rd
A very good tournament for the Year 8 team. Not one game was lost and they played with such enthusiasm and drive. I was delighted for them and so very proud of them. A deserved set of 1st place medals.
